


we were never meant to survive (but what if we did)

by explosiontimothy, inwardphae



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Enemies to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Captain Flint | James McGraw/Thomas Hamilton, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-21
Packaged: 2021-03-22 15:35:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 35,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30040902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/explosiontimothy/pseuds/explosiontimothy, https://archiveofourown.org/users/inwardphae/pseuds/inwardphae
Summary: Since you still haven’t told me your name, I shall call you Jonah. You are so obsessed with sea and water that you’d make a home out of the belly of a whale if only it meant not to touch foot on solid land ever again. What if you get stuck there? I’d be forced to make my way to you and drag you out, cut the whale’s skin with my knife like a shark with its teeth and carve my shape out of it. And yours.There are two fighters, on opposite sides of the time war. They have never met but they know each other's names. But names are powerful, untamed things when they are spoken out loud. So they don’t call each other by their names, ever. Until, one day, they do.The Silverflint Time-Travel AU no one asked for, but you're all getting anyway.[check out the art in every chapter!]
Relationships: Captain Flint | James McGraw/John Silver
Comments: 20
Kudos: 22





	1. this is how we lose

**Author's Note:**

> This is a silverflint time-travel au, loosely based off _"This is How You Lose the Time War"_ by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone (but you don’t need to have read it!)  
>   
> It’s a story about forgiveness, tragedies, heroes and loneliness, but ultimately it is a story about two men who found each other through war and time, and about the strength it takes to let ourselves be loved.  
>   
> We will be posting every Sunday, so stay tuned!  
>   
>  _Godspeed,_  
>  tim and phae

__

[cover art by [@charcubed](https://twitter.com/CharCubed)]

_There is a war, because there is always a war. Empires burn and civilisations collapse, time and time again. And so it goes on._

_There is a time war, thousands of years old, and there are two Agencies. Two Commanders, two armies. The universe looks like an orderly place and that is because it is. There are time-travellers and they climb the thread of time, up and down, until all there is left is ashes behind their steps. Along the thread there are strands, an infinite number of them; whole worlds where life goes on unprompted until one Agency or the other decides to fight for it. When the fight is won, the strand burns, and it can never be found again. And so it goes on._

_There are two fighters, on opposite sides of the time war. They have never met, but they know each other's names. But names are powerful, untamed things when they are spoken out loud. So they don’t call each other by their names, ever. Until, one day, they do._

* * *

**_From: Captain J. Flint, W1LRUS Division_ **

**_To: Long John Silver, S. 289ZA_ **

Dear Mr. Long

While I appreciate your skill in evading me, do not think you can outrun me forever. Two members of my crew have witnessed your thievery with their own eyes. Therefore, it would be much appreciated if you could return the stolen schedule of the LMX Urca Starfighter at your earliest convenience. You do not want for me and my quartermaster to have to chase you all the way into Strand 289ZA, where I know you have scurried like the thieving rat that you are. Consider this letter your final warning. 

With thanks,

Captain J. Flint

**_From: Long John Silver_ **

**_To: Captain J. Flint, W1LRUS Division, Port Royal LK092_ **

My oh-so-proper … Jeffrey? Jeremiah?

What does the J stand for? I am most curious to know. Nothing seems to fit, and I have always thought of you as Captain. 

I apologise if you were inconvenienced by my little act of thievery. As you can probably imagine, it was entirely my intention. So no, I don’t think I will return the schedule any time soon. 

I will admit, I don’t have much use for it at the moment; my side doesn’t truly know what to do with it, and if they do they haven’t told me, and a man can only guess. But I shall confess, I got a glimpse of you on Strand 543, and the idea of blood rising to your cheeks out of sheer irritation was particularly amusing… it compliments your hair, I shall think. And I don’t have much in life, except for endless spite and a reputation in this war, so I am certain you will understand my reasons for entertaining these fantasies of mine whenever I have the chance. 

Interesting choice, this piece of flint you sent your letter in. Were you afraid I wouldn’t remember your name otherwise? Oh, Captain, not even you are that unremarkable. 

It is not the name you know me by, but I’d like it if you called me Silver.

Until then. Godspeed, Captain.

S.

P.S. Don’t think that you can fool me, Captain. I am fully aware that the only reason you have sent me this letter is because you have already tried to hunt me down, and you have clearly failed. Defeat tastes bitter, doesn’t it? Not that I would know, I always win. 

**_From: Captain J. Flint, W1LRUS Division_ **

**_To: Long John Silver, Atlantis XO92_ **

Dear Mr. Long

Many thanks for your letter. I was extremely tempted to send you my out-of-office response, which is what you fully deserve for being a shit. 

I am entirely unsurprised that the purpose of the schedule is not transparent to you. In all honesty, I am surprised that you are able to read it in the first place. Or in fact, that you can read at all. 

Interesting that you should speak of failure and how it tastes. I would like to remind you that I know where you are and it would be of no consequence to me to find you and cut your throat while you sleep. That, to me, would not look like failure -- though it will certainly taste bitter to you. 

You must sleep sometimes, I presume. I am not entirely certain whether the Commander has now replaced her soldiers’ organs with wires and turned them into fully functioning machines, but even if that is the case, one night you will power yourself down and then I will find you. 

More than anyone I am familiar with the power a name holds in this world so I see no reason to give you this power over me, much as I am touched by your heartfelt request. 

As if to return the joke, you send me this letter in a needle. Perhaps you think that I am in danger of missing the point? Port Royal LK092 is exactly the type of wretched place where you would hide -- easy to blend in with the other lowlifes, I suppose. 

This will be my last warning, Mr. Long. Return the schedule to me or else. 

Regards,

Capt. J. Flint

**_From: Long John Silver_ **

**_To: Captain J. Flint, W1LRUS Division, S. 19_ **

My most insidious Flint,

Jerry shall be your name then. Or, what about Jimmie? Ridiculous enough?

How do we go about this sort of thing? We have been fighting this war for centuries, even if my sword has never had the pleasure of meeting yours. Don’t try to fool me into thinking that you ever expected, even for just a second, that I would be willing to acquiesce to your request. I hold you in higher regard than that.

What does this say about you, then? What do you want, Captain? Was your letter just a clever plot, a way to infiltrate my thoughts? Through the simple act of reading your words, you are with me always because now I cannot bear not to think of you. Is that it? Know your enemy, so you can destroy him.

You’re clever, my sweet. Although not clever enough to make good jokes, it seems. You ask if I am afraid of you missing the point, but then you send your words embedded in the chamber of a flintlock and I am supposed to believe that you understand subtlety?

Besides, you forget with whom you’re dealing with. You know what they say about me, you’re too smart not to know it: I am Long John Silver, I say a word and millennia-old civilisations unfold, I open my mouth and I bring down empires, I burn them to ashes and you shall never find a trace of them anywhere up or down the thread.

Maybe it’s all an act. Maybe I want you to reach into this web of lies and find the real me, underneath it all. Maybe I’ll never let you. But I’m bored, Captain. So very bored. And I feel myself adapting to you, I feel my edges thin out at the very idea of you.

I can imagine you telling me that I am not welcome in your head. Well, Captain, in my head you always are.

Call me by my name, I won’t ask again.

Silver

P.S. I don’t sleep anymore, I cannot bring myself to. But you know this, no one who has fought in the war for as long as we have can dream anymore. So, really, what is it that you are asking? Tell me, and I shall listen.

P.P.S. I don’t think I deserve your out-of-office response, in all honesty. And by the time you find this letter in Strand 19 … well, who knows? We might be friends by then.

**_From: Captain J. Flint, W1LRUS Division_ **

**_To: Long John Silver, Bordeaux Y67_ **

Thief, 

Is that all it takes to infiltrate the great, impenetrable mind of the famed Long John Silver? A simple letter? I have to admit, with all the stories they have weaved about you, I expected at least some resistance. I am disappointed, even. If your swordfighting is of the same expertise, I do not expect you will prove to be much of a challenge. Perhaps I could give you some training, maybe you would benefit from it. 

You are but a child to me, boy. I have fought this war from before you were in your swaddling clothes, or your vat of machine oil, or wherever the fuck you came from. You think you can play me like a fiddle, that you will be the end of me? I wouldn’t worry if I were you. I burn cities and civilisations the old-fashioned way. With fire and brimstone. Or a bit of flint and steel, if you will. 

And you accuse me of a lack of subtlety, but then you send me a letter threaded in a spider web of deceit. You are about as subtle as a sledgehammer, Mr. Long.

I hope Merlot is to your tastes. I do wonder, do thieves have sophisticated wine palates? 

If you do not understand the schedule, if you cannot comprehend its purpose, why steal it? To spite me? Has the Commander brainwashed you to the point where you simply follow commands blindly, without questioning them for a second? Or is it something else? Could it really be something so lowly, so trivial as money? Boredom? I do wonder.

What is it that you want, Mr. Long? 

I think you will find I am a rather excellent navigator. Maybe it’s only a matter of time until I find your story, too. 

Apropos of that, I know what your Commander is doing and I would advise her to stop. I am not a man to be scared easily by phantoms. I have dealt with enough of them on my own. 

Keep wondering.

Captain Flint

P.S. If you do not sleep, then surely you watch the stars. They are ever so bright in the thread where you are right now. There are constellations in them, just in case you didn’t know. I doubt your Agency has made astronomy lessons a mandatory part of the warfare curriculum. 

P.P.S. I am not your “sweet”. 

**_From: Long John Silver_ **

**_To: Captain J. Flint, W1LRUS Division, S. FX89_ **

My fearsome Captain Jolly-Holly,

What does it say about me that I find it very endearing when you call me Thief? You are not wrong, at any rate. Thanks for the Merlot, by the way, although leaving that bottle in a winery in Bordeaux ought to be one less subtlety point for you. And you say that you worry about phantoms and ghosts! I don’t always know what my Commander is up to (why, do you? Never pegged you for that much of a lap dog, Captain!) and usually she will do what she pleases without consulting me, believe it or not. However, I can confirm, annoying you is the highlight of my long, long days.

I don’t dream, but if I did I would be dreaming of you burning down empires until there are only two things left standing: the fire, and you. How appropriate. Is this why your Commander has gifted you with flaming hair? Or did it happen the other way around?

I didn’t bring this up in my last letter, but I am touched that you are impressed by my capacity to decipher the schedule. I have forgotten more languages than you could ever learn, and I still speak more than you could ever imagine, but I am flattered. You ask me why I stole it, you ask if my Commander has brainwashed me. Why do men like us do anything in this life, Captain? 

And don’t be so dismissive of money. If that’s never been your motive, consider yourself privileged enough that you’ve never had to beg for coins at the corner of every street, the gears in your chest pleading to stop while you try so hard to not let them.

How much humanity is left in you, anyway? I am genuinely curious. You said once that you don’t know if my Commander has cut me open and swapped all my bones and muscles with machinery. She hasn’t. Not all of it, anyway, but I wonder about you. I always wonder about you.

I don’t think you truly need me to spell this out for you, but since you ask: why the schedule, if we can’t use it? This war was almost over, your side becalmed like a ship in the Doldrums and miles away from the coastline before you became a player. And then there you were; you step foot in any strand, you breathe fire in broad daylight and everything crumbles. I never knew there could be dragons in the light. 

So, I’ve been looking for the wedge to drive between you and your victory, and that’s what the schedule was to me. I know your Agency tasked you with destroying London 213X, and I couldn’t let you. That’s all it was. No hard feelings, yeah? And after all, I never liked any of the Londons I’ve ever come across, I might even burn them all down for you one day. As a peace offering. I’d sink them though, like Atlantis. Would you like that? The fire, I think that I’ll leave to you.

Oh. I almost forgot. (No, I didn’t, silly). The stars. I don’t know their names, but I wish I did. I grew up in St. John’s Home for Poor Orphan Boys, in Strand 2198, and no one ever took the time to explain them to me. My lack of education is clearly showing. Maybe you could? 

All I know of the stars is that they look distant, icy and cold. But some of them burn with the force of a thousand suns, bright and fierce: that’s why you can see them from afar. And now that I think about it, they remind me of you. That first time I saw you, in Strand 543, that’s what you looked like. But then, we won that one, didn’t we? And you lost. So perhaps you were burning out of anger, as well. Do you find you get angry much, Captain? ‘Cause it sure seemed like it. 

Be careful going into the next strand, it’s an insidious one.

Yours,

Silver

P.S. You say you’re not my sweet. Alright, what will you be? You pick.

**_From: Captain J. Flint, W1LRUS Division_ **

**_To: Long John Silver, S. 983F_ **

Mr. Ag 47,

Only a man who has no experience of darkness and fire speaks of both these things as freely as you do. You ask me why you do the things you choose to, and here is what I think: you seek the darkness, Mr. Long. I think it calls to you from within, and you have heard its call from the day you enlisted into the Commander’s army. It has always been there, in the corner of your eye, beckoning you. 

Maybe you have felt it touch you. Like a ghost. Have you? 

Much like that ghost, I, too, will always be in the corner of your eye, one step behind you, and when you least expect me I will appear in your reflection in the mirror. 

Am I trying to frighten you with these tales of phantoms and apparitions? Maybe. I know you are not a man to frighten easily, Long. But fear is such a primal, intrinsic emotion. It is perhaps the truest one I have left. Along with anger, yes, to answer your other question. Which one is yours? 

Have you ever read Shakespeare? In _Macbeth,_ Lady Macbeth, like Pontius Pilate, believes that she can wash away her sins and the blood of those she has slain by washing her hands. As if the water can absolve us of our crimes, whether by cleaning us or drowning us. A man I used to know told me much the same thing, once. That in this life we lead, we leave no legacy, no history, no credo. Just the water. And isn’t it interesting, that we sail all across the universe, and yet in every strand we always go back to the sea. 

Is this why you prefer to flood your strands? Have you seen the bloated skin of a drowned man? 

How often do you wash your hands, Long? 

So, you are in the habit of spying on honest men who are simply trying to do their jobs? I think you’ll find that 543 played out in several ways. Sometimes, I do not know if one can win in this war. Is it winning, or is it simply not losing? 

Naturally, I would not trust you as far as I can throw you, but in this case, your warning about Strand FX89 was appreciated. I caught your garrison by surprise. Their eyes had an odd look about them. I believe it was betrayal and I feel as if you are the one that betrayed them. Are you skilled in the art of it? Is that what you do now, betraying your own men? How dignified. 

Why keep sending me these letters? I see your Agency’s attempts to steal them from me, the ghosts that follow me up the thread. To track me down, perhaps? As much as you feign ignorance, feel free to pass on the following message: I was not born yesterday. I know how to efficiently destroy a letter. And speaking of which, ensure you destroy this cigarette fully. I recommend submerging it in water so that the tobacco becomes unusable. You are supposed to be good at drowning things, is that right? 

Regards,

Captain Flint

P.S. On the subject of stars: some of them may seem like they burn hot but are, in fact, long dead. A death that goes all that distance to make itself known. It’s rather impressive, I think.

P.P.S. It has been said that I am in the habit of saying things as I see them. Therefore: you are still a thief. It is the one thing I know with absolute certainty is true about you. 

P.P.S. Return the schedule. 

**_From: Long John Silver_ **

**_To: Captain J. Flint, W1LRUS Division, Tortuga X39_ **

Flint, 

I haven’t read Macbeth. I haven’t read much literature in fact, in all fairness. But I am in Strand 983F as I write these words and you know how these people are, this far up in time - there’s a library at every corner, and the only Shakespeare I could find was _Richard III_. ‘What do I fear? Myself? There’s none else by.’ What were you saying about fear? This is it. 

Since you still haven’t told me your name, I shall call you Jonah. You are so obsessed with sea and water that you’d make a home out of the belly of a whale if only it meant not to touch foot on solid land ever again. What if you get stuck there? I’d be forced to make my way to you and drag you out, cut the whale’s skin with my knife like a shark with its teeth and carve my shape out of it. And yours. But the whale would be larger than life - how could it not, with you in it - and what if she swallowed me whole? Would you leave some room for me?

You talk of water with such certainty… and yet, I have never much liked the sea. I am no saint, but I’ve never had the time to feel guilty about the life I’ve led so far. It brought me to you, didn’t it? I know, I know, it’s not enough (but can it be?), so I’ll tell you one truth: killing never got any easier, and yet it’s never been more inevitable than it feels right now. 

I like how you tell me of your world. I like that you talk truths and talk of things for what they are - no, not for what they are. For what they are _to you_. That’s much more valuable. And to you I’m a thief, that much is true. But that’s not all I am to you, Captain. How could I be? I am these words, I am the new habits you pick up, I am the silver half crown you found on your way to Strand FX89. I left that for you.

Do you know Seekers? Sometimes people think I am one -- a notion I reject, because they are too shifty and dark, even for me -- and right now I do feel like one of them, looking for ways to communicate with you, to find traces of you in the objects you embed your letters in. 

All this talk of stars, and death. If you lost someone you loved, I am sorry. Genuinely, I am. But it’s as you say: there’s something that remains, you just need to travel down the thread and bathe under their light. Just for a little while. It’ll pass, eventually. It has to. I never let myself fathom anything but.

Write to me from somewhere warm next time, yeah? I’ve had a lifetime of being cold. From the whale’s belly, perhaps?

I’ll be waiting,

Silver

P.S. They say that first there’s an opportunity. Then, there’s a betrayal. I don’t believe that. Betrayal cuts much sharper when it feels inevitable, does it not?

**_From: Captain J. Flint, W1LRUS Division_ **

**_To: Long John Silver, London 666X_ **

Master of the Drowned,

 _Richard III_ ? Truly? How utterly predictable and boring. If it is 983F you went to, you could have at least picked something worth reading, like _Coriolanus_ or even _The Tempest_ , if you were truly desperate. You are very much the amalgamation of Trinculo and Stephano. 

I rarely have time for reading these days. Unlike you, I do actually have work to do and I intend to do it. Which reminds me: return the schedule. 

Very shrewd of you to hide your last letter in a knife while talking of sharp betrayals. Did you hope I would cut myself, that you could trace me back with my blood? Nice try, Mr. Long. I’m very adept at handling knives. Should I ever meet you, I will show you just how much and you will not doubt my expertise again. 

I think it is about time that you stopped it with the nicknames. At least I have had the courtesy to settle on one, haven’t I, Mr. Long? It feels like a snake in my mouth, your name, so long and undulating, curling right at the base of my neck. I am half expecting that your next letter will arrive as a poisoned tooth of the colour that you so insist I call you by. Much like my knife handling, my sense of smell is also well developed. You’ll just have to try harder, I guess.

Let me make myself clear. Nothing has _brought_ me to you. You took something of mine -- something that I have spent time and resources to discover. Something of great importance to me. Something that I have risked my life for, that good men have died for. What did you expect I would do? That I would just let you walk away with it? You have no idea what I am capable of. I hope the strand you are finding this letter in gives you some idea. Do you see this inferno? Do you feel the flames lapping at your feet? Do not test me. 

If I did live in a whale, then its corpse would be rotten. Then, you would have to kill the sharks in order to survive. What would you do then, Mr. Long? 

This has gone on for too long and I am done playing games. Your Commander’s servant is fast but I am faster and I know that you are directing it to me. Let’s make this easier for all of us. Return the schedule to me and stop meddling in business that is no concern of yours. I won’t ask again. 

With no regards whatsoever,

Flint

**_From: Long John Silver_ **

**_To: Capt. Flint, Doldrums, Sargasso Sea NX9_ **

Flint, 

Now you listen to me, you fucking shit. Because all I’ve done since I stole that goddamn schedule is listen and listen and listen to you and wait for you to cut the crap. But it’s never enough, is it?

You got scared, is that it? You opened yourself up too much and now you want to make sure that I remember who it is that I am dealing with. As if I could ever forget. As if I don’t have the very image of you at the centre of my brain, as if I don’t have the Commander at my heels asking why I have yet to kill you every single fucking day. They trained me for this, they trained me _for you_. 

All I do in my life is I kill, and I kill, and I kill. I would have finished you on Nassau Z20A that first time had I wanted to, so answer this: why the fuck are you so convinced that I want to kill you? You are truly amazing, you know that? We are both better off now than we were when this whole thing started, yet you are angry because this thing between us - me and you? You feel like you can’t fully control it, and I think it scares you to death. You are angry because you let yourself be seen, and by me of all people; and now you have to deal with the consequences of it, you have to think of the implications for my side, for your side, for the fucking war. 

Might you consider just for a moment that your distrust of me is completely unwarranted? I warned you about Strand FX89, did I not? And when you almost drowned in Tortuga X39, after you found my knife, who do you imagine it was that distracted the soldiers and dragged you onto that beach, gave you time to come back to life and breathe? Brace yourself, Captain Flint, but I'm the only person within a hundred strands of here who doesn't want to see you dead.

And you talk of drowning like it’s nothing, like it’s a nuisance, like it’s just another godforsaken way to leave this Earth. You ask me if I have ever seen the bloated skin of a man who died at sea, and that tells me all I need to know about what kind of person _you_ are. You are a privileged, insufferable little man, and I thought I had seen something more profound in you than that, but I was mistaken. That, Captain, I admit. 

You call me Master of the Drowned, but you don’t know shit about me. And you don’t know shit about love, either. And funny that, I thought you did. I thought you knew about loss, too. But you know nothing of being trapped in the belly of a ship, with the water rising and nowhere to go, nowhere to run to. You know nothing of holding a man’s hand to your chest when death comes, and death is no poem, no epopee. And that death was ugly and tasted like gunpowder and goodbyes and you have never heard a man scream as he is trapped underwater, unable to breathe. You have never heard a beating heart go impossibly fast and then slow down, and then stop. And there’s a certain irony in this, is there not? That one can hear the last beat of someone’s heart, no matter how much they are howling and screaming for it not to stop. 

I have killed many men, but this one died of love, and not of sword. His name was Muldoon and I loved him and he was the one who had loved me first, loved me truly, loved me for who I am. Scars and fears and killings, and a name that sounds like metal but tastes like blood.

I have always told stories to survive, but he taught me how to listen first. Wanna know how? There was always one way, and he listened _to me._ Wanna know why? Because one night, so many moons ago, I was scared and angry and bone-tired and I didn’t even have a voice yet, but he found it in the depths of my body, he found it and gave it back to me. 

So do me a favour and get your head out of your ass. Because you talk about the sea and I imagined you like Jonah. Yet you are nothing like him. But me? Sharks have tried to eat me my whole life, my Captain, and I’ve killed them all.

Stop this if you want, stop writing to me.

But, wanna know the truth? I don’t think you want to.

Silver

P.S. I checked, because contrary to what you might think at any given time, I am not a piece of shit, nor do I like stabbing my enemies in the back. The Commander hasn’t ordered anyone to follow you or to spy on you, and I am most certainly not tipping them off. What, pray tell, are you on about? You know what? Don’t tell me. I don’t care. 

**_From: Captain Flint_ **

**_To: L. J. Silver, ED3N 17X5_ **

Silver. 

You said that it is my anger that burns bright, yet you underestimate just how much your words scalded, even through the beauty of the moonstone you sent them in. I admire that in you. You are very true in your emotions, the way you weave them into your letters. I think-- maybe that was it, what scared me. I had forgotten what it is like, to witness true emotions that aren’t incandescent rage. 

I-- Forgive me. I spoke out of turn. I understand that. And I am genuinely sorry. For your loss. 

Death at sea is never peaceful, no matter what the stories and the songs tell you. I know this well. You may see me as fire and brimstone now, as hellfire personified, and certainly, I am sure the Commander would like you to see me just so. Once I was a child of the sea, too. It was all I had ever known. And I have seen men die in it, Silver, and I know what that’s like. To have lost him. 

You asked me, once, to write to you from somewhere warm. This counts, I suppose. I am sitting next to a campfire, on Libertalia MX068. Have you been? The last free pirate kingdom, they call it, even though pirates are, of course, long extinct, as far as we are aware at least. The Commander made sure of that. In a way, it is what brought me here, wringing my words into the wings of this firefly. 

Let me tell you a story, of your Commander. I know her well. I used to fight for her -- many say that I was the best of her sailors. I saddled mighty ships and harnessed their guns, I wrought fear into the hearts of the opponents, I destroyed their fleets, I drowned their cities in blood. At the time, I thought it was the right thing to do. That it was inevitable. That this war, our war, was all there was. All that was worth living for. 

Let me tell you a story of a politician. I know, I know. I promise this isn’t what you think. I am not going to secretly try to win your vote in whenever the fuck we can have an election again. Can you imagine me, on the front bench? Isn’t that ridiculous?

No, this is a different kind of politician. I had never met anyone like him in my life. He believed, with every fiber of his being, that there was good on both sides of this war. _The fighting,_ he used to say, _is not the problem, it’s a symptom. To solve it, we need to get to the root cause._ Gods, everyone thought him mad. I did, too. But then he kept talking, he kept quietly working his way into my heart, and before I knew it there I was, standing up to one of the most influential Chamber Members (incidentally, also his father) to support this plan of ending the war that I didn’t quite believe in.

And it wasn’t just ending the war, it was more nuanced than that. The Seekers, the way your Commander uses them, and mine too - I am relieved that you don’t approve. Thomas… he used to say that anything that can travel through time in such a deceitful way and steal pieces of one’s history, collect one’s very soul through the letters that one exchanges, is a shady, dark thing. And that we cannot let such darkness regulate our lives. Now I am made of darkness, but I still think he was right. 

You say I don’t know shit about love. You’re right, maybe I don’t anymore. It’s been so long. But I did then -- with Thomas, it all seemed so easy, within our very reach. When he spoke, the world seemed to stutter to a halt. Everyone held their breath and listened to what he had to say. And yet, he himself only heard two voices: mine, and his wife’s. Miranda. 

We were happy, Silver, me and him. I have never known anything quite like it. Yet, happiness is not something that your Agency could abide. Thomas was taken and murdered. Took his own life, they told us, yet we knew this was not the truth. We had heard stories of what happens in the place where they took him. Where the Commander, your Commander, had sent him. 

That was the end, for me. I left the next day, with Miranda. She begged me to stop fighting. To just walk away. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t.

She died, too, but I will tell you of her another time. I will tell you of her life. She deserves better than to be remembered just by the way she died -- though, with what I am planning to wreak on those who killed her, it is safe to say that will make a mark, too.

You ask if I am angry. I am enraged. Your Commander, your Agency, they took everything from me and they called me a monster. It is no surprise that I am what became of that. But sometimes, I seem to forget not to behave like one. 

We are, both of us, born out of great tragedies. I think this justifies a certain amount of trust between us. I trust you. Which is why I do not think we should stop writing. If we are to achieve what Thomas wanted, to finally stop this fucking endless war sometime -- well, isn’t the beginning of that an alliance? Why shouldn’t it be ours?

I seem to have written you a novel and have now had to collect you a whole jar of fireflies rather than just the one. I hope they light your way forward, wherever that is. Do you remember ink and paper? I barely do. Maybe the smell of it is all that’s left in my memory. I think someone, somewhere, used to write me dedications and letters on books too. But i don’t remember it, not anymore. So much has been lost.

You do not have to reply. But I would like it if you did. 

Flint

**_From: L. J. Silver_ **

**_To: Capt. Flint, S0FIA PB871_ **

Flint, 

I almost called you John Doe once, a few letters ago, because you were so secretive that you could have been anyone in the many lives that I have led, watching me, observing me. And yet, at this point I feel I would know you anyway. I would know you in every lifetime. Because I let something slip - I don’t even think I wanted to. But I was angry, and you play my keys just right, apparently. But you gave me a truth back, see? So that I wouldn’t regret it. And I didn’t - I don’t.

You said once that you know the power of a name in this world we live in. So, thank you for using mine. I don’t think I would have replied if you hadn’t. You know why, now. 

I have never been to Libertalia, but I have heard stories of it. Despite everything, I never wanted to be a pirate - I told you, I don’t much like the sea. And yet I seem to spend most of my time on it, one way or another. It sounds like the sort of place Thomas would have liked, though. You describe him as someone who can leave a mark no matter where they are, and legacies are a rare thing in this life. I have a friend on that pirate island you find yourself in that would tell you as much, Captain. 

And it makes me wonder about what Thomas would have been able to do there. What sorts of things he would have inspired people to do. He clearly inspired you, and for me, that’s enough. So, however much comfort this knowledge can provide you, know this: through your words, I can see him in you, I can see the Thomas-shaped nest he carved in your heart. So you keep him there, yeah? Hold him in. 

I am sorry you had to go through all of this, Captain. I really am. And you talk of monsters, of what this war turned you into, but you know what scares me? That I can feel you hurting, but I am a selfish prick. Life didn’t give me much to begin with, so I find myself struggling to renounce to anything of value, I hold onto it like a lifeline; and I -- if I could somehow trade this life and make it so I never met you, so that you could have Thomas back, I don’t think I would. 

Can you ever forgive me? I don’t truly know shame, but I feel… something akin to it. But it’s the truth. I am glad something brought you to me, after all. And I wouldn’t give it back. I wouldn’t let go. Maybe one day I will learn how to. 

So, you were one of us, then. I am not entirely surprised. I could sense it in your resentment, in your words when you talked about Commanders and brainwashing and torture. We were so lucky, once, and yet we let you go. 

I told a friend about you, in passing (don’t worry, I was careful). She was someone very important to me -- she still is -- and she would like to meet you. I think you'd have a lot in common, actually. Your resentment for empires, at the very least.

I won’t ask you of Miranda, I can wait, but you make me worry. What are you planning, Flint? Whatever it is, I am sure it is warranted, but be careful. I do my best to keep you safe, but I worry they will catch on. And if you’ll burn a city down, and I don’t stop you, they will demand a reason for it. And I shall give them one.

Please, be careful.

Silver

P.S. You are so dramatic, Captain. I would have accepted a single apology, and you gave me a whole jar of them. 

P.P.S. To answer your question, sometimes I think about letters the way we used to write them, and I think that there is beauty in ink and paper, but there's beauty in my sending you pieces of me whenever I want to talk to you. I’m sending this one stitched in the seam of a leathery coat I found in Florence P34. It would suit you, I think. It certainly made me think of you.

**_From: Captain Flint_ **

**_To: L. J. Silver,_** **_Nassau Z20A_**

Silver,

It tastes so odd. Your name, in my mouth. Like a blade hidden under my tongue. Like steel, nestled deep inside my cheek. Like when I was little and I fell into a pile of snow and some of it made its way up my nose and made me sneeze and then gave me a nosebleed. 

It’s good. It feels good. It feels right. Silver. 

Thank you for the coat. Of course, you realise, I had to remove the entire seam where your letter was so that I could destroy it, and then I had to rethread it. Took me all evening, you shit. My eyes aren’t what they once were.

Writing to you now, I am beginning to realise just how much it is that I have forgotten. 

We talked of libraries once. I cannot remember the last time I was in a library. I think I enjoyed it. Libraries were quiet places, where I did not have to put up with the incessant jabber of others around me. I enjoyed the smell of the leather bindings. There was a red one I quite liked. I can no longer remember the name of it now. It has been so long. That coat though, it smells a bit like that. Maybe I could write a book and stitch it into it, then another. A library on my back. Wouldn’t that be something? You could then come and read all those books you have missed out on.

I agree, you would have made a dreadful pirate. I was at St. Augustine LK012 after one of your side’s warships. They sent me to take it alone, with nothing but a dagger. As I was climbing to the gun ports, I half expected to see you there. Us sneaking past the cryo chambers. You would have probably done something stupid, like slipped, or broken something. I probably would have killed you. Or at least tried to. But then, of course, I remembered that the warship is one of yours. It didn’t feel like yours. It felt so cold and, despite all your talk of water and metal, I do not imagine you to be cold. 

_For seafaring men, the first blessing at the outset of their voyage is a favorable wind; for then it is likely that at the end as well they will win a more prosperous homecoming._ What is home to you, Silver? Where does the favourable wind take you? I thought mine was Nassau Z20A for so long, and then it was not. I thought it was a London before that (I won’t tell you which one – I know what you’re like, you’ll go snooping), and then it was not. I think I had a home once. I do not remember it. 

Thank you for what you said about Thomas. I appreciate it. Despite all the hurt I have seen, all the blood I have spilled, all that I have lost, it seems that it all happened for a reason. Something about the way we came together feels-- right, does it not, Silver? If it weren’t such a chaotic set of circumstances, I would have immediately accused you of setting a trap. And yet, we echo through all these strands, where our words have scattered. We have embedded ourselves in the very fabric of the universe, and we have somehow done it together. That has to count for something. Right? 

To answer your question from two letters ago: Have you not felt it, Silver? A shadow, a presence just within the corner of your eye, one that’s tracking you with a slightly unsteady step? Maybe I’m becoming paranoid with age. But we need to be careful. There is a lot at stake, here. 

Stay safe. The seas are fickle and traitorous. 

Should you need me, I will be here

J.

P.S. You ask me my name. I do not think I remember that anymore either. Maybe I will remember, with your help. The J is all that’s left. 

P.P.S. Gods, Silver, forgiveness has never been so easy to give. Let’s move ahead, as partners. As friends, maybe? 

**_From: L. J. Silver_ **

**_To: J. Flint, Ithaca XB23_ **

My fire and sparkle and flintlock,

If I am the blade in your mouth then I can taste your blood, I will drink you up and I will swallow you whole. If I am the blade in your mouth then I can feel your tongue. Captain, I hope that I am not being too forward, but don’t you know it? It’s so easy to hurt you. 

Friends? Yes, gods, of course. You are right, we have crafted this… alliance? This partnership, despite our Commanders and this war. We may destroy our letters but traces remain, always, and the universe always knows. 

I look for traces of you in the ashes of this letter, in your message so carefully crafted. I am still thinking about your rage, and however legitimate it still scares me. So I look for proof that you are well, and safe, I take your words to my nose, I smear them on my skin, I breathe them in until they burn my lungs and my throat is bloodied and I am undone by you. You have so much force, and you’re not even here.

To me you smell of something salty, something lonesome. Of the sea eroding the promontory on which I stand, consuming the land I once walked on to get here, until there’s nothing else left but me, at the top of this hill on this remote island in a strand I never thought I could travel to. 

I am glad you liked my coat, I am certain it makes you look even fiercer, a proper pirate captain now. I was tempted to send you a bicorn hat to go with it, but then they would have to arrest you for high-seas piracy, a threat against the Crown! And we don’t want that, do we. Instead, I am sending you this letter in the stone of a peach I seized from a tree in Italy, in Strand X84. It would be fun, though, how do you imagine you would escape? 

I went to Nassau Z20A and you’re right, my Jared - Joseph, Jolly Roger, Jellyfish? You’re right, I would have travelled to London just to understand you a bit more. When did you enlist? I dreamt of that warship, after reading you. I dreamt of what would have happened if we’d been on the same side of this war, we'd have been fierce and unstoppable. I know I said I don’t dream. That was a lie - here’s a truth for you. 

So you don’t remember, my bittersweet. Is it painful? Is it freeing? Forgetting is not always a bad thing. There was a child I knew once. His name was Solomon Little, and he didn’t have a home, and the truth of it all is that he was afraid: of the sea, of the world, of every goddamn thing on Earth. He was so afraid that he learned the power of a story and how to spin it around - sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. He knew the hunger, most of all. He learned that it is so much easier to fill that hole in your chest if you don’t have a past that drags you down and drowns you fathoms deep. 

I don’t have a home. Not in my Commander, not in the Agency, not in this war. There was someone once - Madi, in fact. I told you about her already. But it’s been too long, and she could never be a home for me. She was too enamoured with the world, you see. But you, you feel like homecoming to me, and how does one go around this sort of thing? 

Yours, always

Silver

P.S. I wish I had a name to call you by. But I know what you’d taste like; you’d taste like resilience to me. Something pure, something fierce. I don’t have to wonder: I know you. 

**_From: J. Flint_ **

**_To: L. J. Silver, London X705_ **

Moonlight,

I tried to start this letter by calling you John, but it doesn’t feel right. It’s too ordinary for you. There are so many men called John in the world, but there is no one else like you. I have been alive for so long, now. Hundreds and thousands of strands between here and the day I was born in a rainy fisherman’s village, I think. But I have never met anyone like you. You have never been ordinary.

You are not too forward. Do not worry -- I am difficult to hurt. I have survived many, many things -- pirates, sailors, angry lords, soldiers, a queen, a king, your Commander and her goddamn Navy. So if you are concerned about doing me harm, I wouldn’t worry too much. 

You are, and always will be, Silver to me. I will keep you in my ribcage like a locket. No one else should be allowed to know you like I do. The knowledge of you is one that is to be kept safe.

Silver. Silver. Silver. 

Your name is beautiful. I don’t know why I avoided it for so long. 

Madi. She has a beautiful name, too. I would have liked to have met her, I think – simply to know another who knows you. The knowledge of you is overwhelming, it flows inside me and fills me up from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. I do not know if I have space for all of it. Every time I think I cannot take any more pieces of you, I find another one of your letters and it just makes its way into my body before I know it. 

I do not have much time, dearest Silver, so I will have to be quick with today’s story. I promised you I will tell you of Miranda -- now is the time for me to do so. Maybe then you will understand what I am about to do. Maybe then, you will not judge me so harshly. 

You can imagine what she was like, being not only married to Thomas but also his best friend in the world. Her fire was enough to match his and then some. Oh, she carried the title beautifully. When he died, she refused to take on my name under the guise of being married to me. _I will never marry again_ , she said, and I dared not defy her. I hid her away on Nassau Z20A, terrified that the Agency would find her. She had a little house, with a garden. She grew vegetables and kept bees (two things that she taught herself, from nothing, while I was away). The local people thought her a witch and while she laughed about it with me, I do not think she found it as funny when I was away.

Gods, she was so lonely, Silver. She must have been, in that place, with just the bees to keep her company. I wasn’t much use to her, drowning in grief as I was. As I am. We went to seek an audience with an old friend of Thomas’, hoping he would help us with our goal. This was shortly before you stole that schedule. In fact, the schedule was her idea--a safety net, if you will. It turned out that that friend was the one who betrayed us in the first place. The one whose word had Thomas sent to--

Well. I was numb, when I heard it. I could not believe it. And for Miranda, I suppose she had been suppressing it so long that she no longer could ignore the boiling anger inside of her. It ended, right there. In front of me. I cannot-- even thinking of it makes my stomach lurch, Silver. She has turned into an apparition, bleeding, dying, haunting my every step. Maybe she is the ghost I keep seeing everywhere. I do not think I can handle it. 

Sometimes I wonder if my touch was what ruined her. What ruined Thomas. I wonder if it will ruin you, too. I fear ruining you. I fear burning you. You, silver-tongued man, are like the moon. You light my way when I think that all is lost. 

Which is why I must ask you: stay away from Charles Town PA921. Even if your Agency sends you there, for whatever reason, you need to make up a reason not to go. I fear your life may depend on it. I fear losing someone else to that wretched place, to that strand. I will burn it to ashes, because that is what she would have wanted -- and the flames of it will be so beautiful. But now, I think of you, and I fear you will do something stupid, because you always seem to follow right in my footsteps. Do not go to Charles Town. Once I have burned it to the ground, you and I can go somewhere quiet and meet for a drink. I would like that, I think.

When I lost Thomas, I raged. I wanted to burn down the world. I am ruined over Miranda, now. If I lost you too-- The last thing I want is for you to get hurt because of my actions. Please, do what you can to keep yourself safe. I now know you would forgive me; my own conscience will, however, ruin me, should anything happen to you. 

Yours,

Flint

**_From: J. Flint_ **

**_To: L. J. Silver, [LOCATION REDACTED]_ **

S.,

I have not received a reply from you. Or any acknowledgement that you got my last letter. Normally, this wouldn’t bother me -- why would it? -- but considering what I told you, it concerns me more than I would like to admit. 

It’s over. It’s done. Charles Town burned, for days, for weeks, for months, it will keep burning for a millennia. I try telling myself that I do not enjoy senseless violence but by the gods did it feel good to gut the pig that was responsible for their deaths. I felt a fierce, wild satisfaction doing it.

Maybe that’s what they want. Maybe that’s how they are going to win. 

Never mind that, Silver. I can tell you about the flames when I see you, for that drink, remember? I hope I am not putting you in danger by writing this and sending it where I am sending it because I cannot seem to find you elsewhere. But I hear things. Our chief of intelligence, she’s a very capable woman, you know. And she hates my guts, naturally. She said-- she told me that Long John Silver is nowhere to be found. _Out of commission_ are the exact words that she used and something about them left a bad taste in my mouth. 

Silver, I hope that you heeded my advice -- that this is some kind of long-form con you pulled to get yourself out of Charles Town. Please tell me that it is so. I have a terrible, tight feeling in my chest, and it won’t seem to go away. 

I have been looking for the moon in the sky in this strand but I cannot find it. Maybe the smoke of Charles Town has spread all the way here. Or maybe it’s something else. 

Silver, where are you? I swear to the gods, if you have gotten yourself in harm’s way, I will kill you myself. 

Come find me, Silver. 

J.

**_From: J. Silver_ **

**_To: J. Flint, Istanbul C45X_ **

Flint,

F - L - I - N - T,

I don’t- I think I. I keep filling my mouth with your name, I call for you at night, I call for you when I am hurting. I hurt all the time now, but it was never your fault. 

Know this: I could never hate you.

Silver

**_From: J. Silver_ **

**_To: J. Flint, CAROL1NA Colonies X67_ **

I’ll tell you this:

I wanted you to have it. Charles Town, I mean. I couldn’t risk you not getting what you wanted, what you deserved. After you told me of Miranda, I -- now, please, do not apologise. I don’t want you second guessing yourself, or regretting having ever told me about her. I don’t regret anything, and I sure as hell don’t regret you. 

So. I made sure you got your revenge. And this time, I wanted a front-row ticket to the beauty of the destruction you unleashed. I disguised myself, or I thought I did. They were coming for you, did you know that? Good thing I was there, my sweet. I tricked them, directed them to another strand, most of them died there as far as I know (the Devil’s Triangle in C54 is not a place you want to visit aboard a ship, spacecraft or otherwise, trust me). And you know what, they deserved it for thinking they could ever stand between you and hellfire.

But then. I should have stopped you, I guess. They told me as much. I knew as much. The Commander found me, she took me away, she hid me from the world for a while - I apologise this comes to you after so long. But I hope you know that I would never want to leave you alone. 

She said, “Long, today they have won.” And I said yes. 

She said, “Long, you did well for this war, because I made you myself, flesh and bone, and you are perfect for it. A wonderful, unstoppable machine.” And I said yes, but she didn’t make me, you know? I wasn’t made for her. I wasn’t made for Madi. Sometimes I think that I was made for you. 

I just want- I don’t even know what I want. I look at my leg and I feel _something_ , raw and ugly. But then, I was saving you. So maybe it’s okay. I don’t know.

She said, “Tell me why you didn’t stop him.” I said you couldn’t be stopped. 

She said, “Promise me next time you will.” I couldn’t. So she said, “I gave you your strength, I gave you your freedom, I can take it all away. You better remember, Long John Silver, that you were right to once be afraid.” So she crushed my leg, the left one, turned it into something ugly and bloody, something imperfect. Something cruel. But gods, Flint, doesn’t she know? I have never been whole. And I don’t give a shit who wins this war, my side or yours.

I am rambling, and I am sorry. I need to rest. I think I will keep feeding you my tired words for a while. I want to tell you so much and I can’t - I am weaving these words into the thread of time, the only way I know how. I hope they get to you, oh so slowly, and that you can unravel them bit by bit as you find them, like Penelope at night in Ithaca XB23 all those millennia ago. That’s a good story, Captain, it really is. And maybe you can keep me with you just a tad bit longer, close to your chest.

Yours,

Silver

**_From: J. Flint_ **

**_To: J. Silver, [LOCATION REDACTED]_ **

Silver, godsdamnit. Silver. Silver.

I cannot begin to tell you what I felt when I read your letter. You thought my rage in Charles Town was hellfire? Silver, at the thought of you hurt at _her_ hands, I was ready to destroy the world with my bare fists. All I could do was drive them into the walls of Miranda’s house until they bled, instead. 

How I used to fear betrayal. I used to fear your Commander finding me. Now I _want_ her to find me, Silver. I want to see the faces of every single one of them that made you afraid, that hurt you so grievously and I want to tear them apart. Have I told you this, that I have killed a man with nothing but my bare hands before? I would rip their throats out with my teeth if I have to. 

Silver, Silver, Silver, you are stubborn and incorrigible. You are a menace. And yet, I cannot seem to imagine doing this -- having an existence, at all, without you in it. 

I won’t -- I can’t even begin to understand why you did what you did, moondust. I feel-- 

Rest well. Heal. Be better. You never did answer me about that drink. Would you? If-- if things were normal, whatever that means. I want. I know what I want. I am scared of wanting it. Wanting things has never ended well for me. 

One thing your Commander did get right, though. You are perfect, every part of you is. But she did not make you so. Your perfection is something that shimmers inside you, it shines so bright I see it through all the strands. It is how I always know where you are. I may be the only pirate to use the silver moon for celestial navigation. As long as it leads me to you, I’m good with that. 

I am.

Silver, I know full well you don’t listen to my requests, but I will make them nonetheless. Stop getting onto your Commander’s bad side. Talk less, smile more, etc. If we are both to come out on the other end of this, we need basic self-preservation. Do not anger her again, do not fight her, do not cross her. Heal and be better, and join me on the battlefield again. 

Enjoy this apple and the letter in its seeds. Maybe if you eat them, a whole forest of my words will grow inside your heart and, that way, it will be as if I am at your bedside, reading to you. I would like that. 

Silver, Silver, Silver. Be well, Silver. 

Yours,

F. 

P.S. Now I am the one who worries that I am being too forward. But-- something tells me that you would not mind it that much, if I was. You may even like it? 

**_From: John Silver_ **

**_To: J. Flint, Bristol X34_ **

My lightning-before-the-thunder,

You’ll have found this one in Bristol X34. Dreadful city, but I have always had a soft spot for the harbour, the wobbly jetty facing the sea, the singular quality of every grain of sand, England on that strand as cruel and fearsome as always. 

You worry too much, my sweet - can I call you so now? I am convalescent, after all. And you never did tell me what you wanted to be called by. You worry too much, and what has the Commander ever done to me, after all? Sure, she took my leg, but this letter you sent? The things she unleashed, without knowing. The things I want to do with you, and _to_ you. So, you see, for it to be a threat, she’d have to do something really terrible. She’d have to take away something truly irreplaceable. And you know, like I do, that there aren’t many of those things in this world.

I know it wasn’t your intention Jellybean - Joyful, Jiggles. But I feel we are not on even ground now. You didn’t ask, you never asked but you told me of you, of Thomas, of Miranda, of your life before. You showed me London, I walked in your past like a tourist and I felt part of it. And now I feel amiss, I feel undone. I can tell you want to know, I can almost taste the question on the tip of your tongue, mixing with your saliva and enemies’ blood. You were always so fierce, right from the start.

I can’t bear to tell you of me. I can’t. And I won’t apologise for it. You know of me all that I can bear to be known, the good and the ugly and the awful. I can see how your past defines you, shapes you, makes you who you are today. Makes you _mine_. And I don’t tell you this because I believe you incapable of understanding, but because of the fundamental difference in the way we carry our histories on our shoulders. Mine swallowed me whole a long time ago. But there was no Captain Flint in the belly of the whale, and I had to fight my own way out of there. That’s all there is. The ugly fucking truth. 

Will you still keep me close to your heart now? This one-legged creature that doesn’t breathe fire like you do, and prefers to flood cities instead of burning them. It’s the coward’s way out, I know. Another truth for you. But I cannot let myself walk away from you, with this power I have to ruin you. Here in my hands. It feels inevitable, does it not? That we’ll be the end of each other, in this god-forsaken war we’re fighting in. This is how we lose, love, but oh god, do I wish we could win. 

To answer your question from… gods, how many letters ago? I know you are worried about the ghosts, but I haven’t heard of any Seeker spying on you, and I am always careful (until you are in the line of fire, that is. Tell that to my leg.) But where I am now, nothing outside of Commander and the Agency can reach me. Perhaps only your words. 

Take care, sparkle and gleam. This world is a hard one to know, and I cannot lose you to it. Eat up all my words and carry me in the space between your ribs and your heart, or behind your belly button. I can carve myself a nest in your belly and you can carry me wherever you go. Keep me close. To me, you always are.

I’ll be waiting,

Silver

P.S. Are you asking me on a date? Why, Captain Flint, do you find me handsome and impossible? And you offer me an apple, talk me of its seeds, gift them to me. I only wish you were even more direct. Whatever you wanted, I’d give to you. The whole of me, if you want it. You just have to take me.

P.P.S. Since we’re on the topic, don’t be scared of wanting. I wish for you a world where you can want and want and want and everything you wish for will be yours, just like that. 

**_From: James Flint_ **

**_To: John Silver, Cornwall SK291_ **

My Silver, King of Pirates, Best of us All, 

You will find this pebbled letter near my childhood home in Cornwall SK291. Or at least I think it’s where my childhood home used to be. I don’t remember. It’s not nice, is it? The smell alone is dreadful. All that fish. But looking at their shimmering scales, at the waves crashing on the shore, at the foam that spreads at my bare feet, I think of you and all that we have been, all that we are going to be. This is it, Silver -- the last part of me that you are yet to see. I have now made myself transparent to you. 

Oh. Oh, you would-- would you? Yes, Silver, yes. I do find you handsome and impossible and rakish and everything in this world. Yes, silvertongue. Yes, my answer is yes.

Take you? Silver, I would not be so brutish as to just _take_ you. I am -- was -- a gentleman, I am told. I would hold your hand in mine and trace the paths among your palms. I would put you on my back and climb every strand with you on my shoulders and your breath warm in my ear. I would find a bed for you, for us. I would undo you, with my hands, with my mouth. I would find every crevice of your body and make a home there, put my lips there, whisper my deepest secrets. Would you like that? I would always want to know. Those deep emotions that you hide within you, I will always long to hear them.

I do not need you to apologise. You have given me what you want to give me. That is all I will ever ask for. When you first replied to my sharp piece of flint, my darling (is this okay?), I doubt that you were signing up to be bared in front of someone in this way. I doubt that you were signing up _for me._ If you want this -- if you want me, us -- then rest easy with the knowledge that I would never ask you or force you to tell me anything. All I want is you, as you are. 

Oh, you soulful little shimmer, I would tell you stories, also. I have so many of them and no one to share them with, no one who would listen. No one until you. Maybe I would sing to you, too. I do not know many songs but I know melodies, half-forgotten tunes that I can sometimes hear in my head. I want to give them to you. I want to give you everything, if you will have it. 

They called me into a meeting in Atlantis KY982. The Agency said they are pleased with my process, confident in my chances of success, of my ability to finally capture and kill Long John Silver. When I talk of Long John, I do not imagine you. To me, he is an ephemeral creation, a patchwork of every single enemy I have slain, of every throat I have cut, of every crumb of violence I have inflicted onto the Commander and her armies. He has a scar on his face, I think. He has two feet. He tries to reason with me, to tell me we are the same, to make me feel comfortable. He is nothing like you, because you have never made me feel comfortable for a second in my life. You make me so uncomfortable I sometimes want to scream. It’s the only real feeling I have left. The only thing to remind me I am alive. 

You ask if I can keep you close, as if you do not realise that you have eaten up my heart and taken refuge in its place. I live because you do. I breathe because you do. Do not stop us breathing, Silver. Keep breathing for us both. 

In regards to the ghost: I devised a way to trap it. When I went to Island MR00N, I waited for it. I left a thread of your feather on the ground, the one you gave me with your last letter, then I hid nearby and caught my breath. I waited. I waited. And there it was. The shadow. It looked sickly, although my eyes refused to focus on it, for some reason. Its step was uneven, unsure. I think it may be ill.

Then, it poured something onto the thread and it rubbed it into the hollow of its throat.

Silver. It’s a fucking Seeker. And it has been collecting our letters. 

I swear to you, I tried to kill it. I tried. I thought, _Seeker_ , and I thought of you and of Thomas and I channeled all of it into that fight. I swear, I tried so hard. But it was too quick. Or I was too slow. I don’t know. My mind was still shimmering from the gentle touch of your feather and I could not think of much else. The Seeker, even if it seemed weakened, was incredibly strong. It shoved me into a rock and I hit my head on it. By the time I came by, it was gone. 

My dear, I have failed you again. But I will not stop fighting for you. For you, for the first time since this all started, I fight not out of anger, but out of love. 

Yes, Silver, love. Is that too fast? For you must know I have felt it-- for some time. I don’t think I realised, until I read what you did. For me. I think I had forgotten what it feels like. But I know now, starlight, moonshine, snowfall in the desert. I do. I love you. 

I hope the word love tastes like mango to you. Have you ever had a mango? They sometimes grow in the Martinique Strands, where the summer air shimmers all year round and the sea smells hot and sandy. I will take you there one day and feed you a piece of mango, I will let it spill in your mouth like the sun, and then I will kiss the taste away, so I can feel what you feel. 

Please be safe. Please be well. Please be mine. Please forgive me.

Flint

P.S I still am scared of wanting, but I will not stop. I don’t think I can, now. Ever since I first caught a glimpse of you in Havana LZ013, ever since then I have only thought of you. But it is more than wanting. It is a burning need. It incinerates me. Look at what you’ve done to me. Look at how hard I have fallen for you, how fast.

P.P.S. Silver, I remembered, I think-- James. Silver, my name is James and it now belongs to you. Only you.

**_From: John Silver_ **

**_To: James Flint, SPA1N SA778_ **

James. 

James. James. James. 

I would have never guessed and yet I feel like I have always known. Your name on my tongue, so sweet I could eat you up. And it’s true, I’ve always known you. Me and you, we hold the world in balance, and I cannot stop wetting my lips with your name.

Look at you. Look at the wonder of you, the way your words can warm me up at night just so, and I keep them with me always, I tend to them and let them grow in my chest, in my very soul. There’s so much of you, so much you are giving to me that I don’t know where to start, I want to feed you words until you beg me to stop. And even then, I don’t think I will. (That’s not true. I will always listen to you. But I can just imagine - me and you? Is there anything in this world you wouldn’t want me to do?)

I never much cared for mangoes, too sweet, too cheerful. I never let myself have that kind of gift. But with you there, maybe I- I think I could - Perhaps I- James. Is this real? James. This is not a ploy, this is not a cruel joke, this is not your hand reaching out, carrying me out of the abyss only to let me go a second before my foot can walk the Earth again? Tell me it isn’t. James. James.

I want to feel your body on every inch of me, I want your hands on every centimeter of skin, on every corner uncharted. Your hands pulling my hair, resting on my chest. I want your fingers in my mouth. I’d suckle on them like a bee craving pollen and god, it’d never be enough. 

I feel like Eurydice must have felt, walking back to the land of the living. I can only watch your broad back, your shoulders, your freckles - you’d carry me, really? I cannot stop watching you, and I only want you to turn your head and look at me, before I disappear. Maybe I was never real. Maybe I am only real when I write to you.

I keep reading your words, and I am having many thoughts. No, you would never be so brutish - unless I asked you to. What then? I want to hold your hands too and I want to learn the geography of your skin, draw endless maps and understand you just so. I want you with me in the light, when it’s good. 

But, James - I want you there when it’s dark out, too. I want you there for the raw and the ugly, I want your voice singing to me a song of sighs and I want your tongue on my earlobe as you do just so. Will you learn of me too? I think of your skin under pale moonlight, milky and oh so soft. I wonder how you love, I wonder if it would be different when you are loving _me_. 

I’d give you my body, yes, but I’d take yours too. I’d like to learn how they are different and recognise the similarities. They’re just bodies, and we have a beating heart, and our hands can touch and explore and I am so, so bared in front of you. It’s not a position I ever thought I’d be comfortable in. But it is. What does it say about you, then, James? What does it say about me?

You are right, I didn’t sign up for this. But there are pieces of us -flintlock, needle, spiderweb, moonstone, fireflies - scattered around this universe that tell a different story, a story that wants to be told. It could have gone either way. It could have been a trap (never), I could have not saved you that time on the beach, you could have chased me, we could have turned away and never looked back. But honey, I never thought it could have been possible, and yet it was. It is. Nobody will ever believe something is possible until someone shows them. But when the day comes, you know what they’ll say? They’ll say it was inevitable.

Today is the day, James. And so, inevitable we are. 

Let me tell you another story: there’s a small town in SPA1N PR987, miles from the coast. A town much like the one where you found this letter today, growing from the timid sprouts of a plant struggling to survive under the scorching sun. There was a child there, and he didn’t know anything of the sea and of the monsters that live in it. His name was Solomon Little, he only knew pain and hunger and he liked dragons most of all, and he didn’t know he would fall in love with one, one day. Such is life.

I am worried about this Seeker of yours. I am not as fast as I used to be; I travel up and down the thread with less ease, and every time I leave you something - something real, something true - I sense a shadow, a beast, I saw it rubbing its body against my letters the way I wish I could do to you, fusing my skin with yours until we are only one body and soul. Keep away James, my love, keep away from it. Whatever this Seeker wants, we can find a way. We have to.

I was in Strand 234 when my Commander said that something was amiss, told me to be careful. It felt like a dream, much as you say. This war, your side, my side, ‘You know what you’re fighting against, Long, and you’re the only one who can kill the Captain. Do it soon.’ We are standing at the edge of the world, me and you, but they can’t kill me if I fail. I am the best they’ve got.

I’m with you, always

Silver

P.S. You are so quirky at times. So I make you uncomfortable? I try to keep you on your toes, I do my best. You need the challenge. 

P.S.S. James, you could never fail me. I love you, isn’t that enough?

**_From: James F._ **

**_To: John Silver, Zorah Z34_ **

My silvertongue, 

You will be the death of me, you know that? Here I am, sitting on this bench in SPA1N SA778, looking, as much as possible, like an ordinary farmer, and you write to me about sucking and skin and my fingers in your mouth? I swear to the gods, Silver, downfall has never tasted as sweet as your words do, and I taste it in every glimpse of a curl before you start climbing again and disappear beyond my reckoning. 

Are you my Samson? If you are, I would never cut your hair, I would never stoop so low as to betray you, as Delilah did. No, my love, I will braid it, night and day I will weave my love into your hair like Penelope wove her loom and the sight of it will make any other suitor drop dead if they even so much as look at you. I will thread flowers and seashells and beads within it. I will insert myself between every hair, I will make a home in its warmth and stay there forever.

I can imagine the smell of your skin. It is just like starlight. No, I can’t explain it either. You will just have to live with it, I suppose. 

You ask how I love. Thomas always used to say that I don’t know how to do anything by halves. I don’t know if that answers your question. I know how I would love you -- reverently. I would worship you, every second that I have the privilege of your body in my hands. I wish I could press my forehead against your chest just to listen to the beat of your heart. To rest. I think we both deserve rest, my love. We have been through so much. 

You are infinitely real, my spiderweb, my cenotaph, my shimmering sea. You are the only real, solid thing that I know. One day, I will do nothing but hold you in my arms until you feel it, too. Bone pressing against skin. Cartilage. Warm breath. You, me, and the boundless sky. Nothing else in the universe will matter, then. Nothing else in the universe matters to me, now. Only you. 

I feel as if you have swallowed me whole, you are consuming my every waking thought, and at night, when I look at the stars, I pretend I am asleep and dreaming of you. It is easier to breathe in this world with the knowledge that I love you so deeply. 

The Seeker will not touch you. The Agency will not touch you. I give you my word. They all know and fear the wrath of Captain Flint. The monster that carries my name only needs to bare its crooked teeth and they all scamper. Not you. Before you I stand, nude in body and soul, and just as myself. Do you fear me? I hope not. I hope it will be enough, that I will be enough. I am a patchwork of tragedies but you are the thread that holds me together.

Be safe, my silver lining, and be well. Be careful with where you leave your letters and be careful with what you do with mine -- keep them away from the hungry paws of the Seeker. It cannot have them. It cannot have you. We have it all in the palm of our hands and we will keep it so, as long as we play our cards right. 

Your sweet, always,

James

P.S. The tip of my toes is a nice place to be with you around. I could get used to it, very easily. You know, I wonder of your tastes in bed, I wonder of all the ways your body would react to mine. Ignorance is a terrible thing - maybe you could help me collect some data?

P.S.S. It’s enough. It’s always enough. It’s everything. 

**_From: Silver_ **

**_To: James F., Sansretour Valley BW213_ **

My- my sweet.

Yes, that you are. You’re mine, wholly, fully. If I am your silver lining then you are my red thread. I see it now: James, my whole life, every breath I have ever taken, every road I have ever walked, every thread I have ever climbed, they’ve been leading to this. To me and you, halfway across the universe. But we keep finding each other, don’t we?

If I am real then you are no monster, love. Monsters only live in the darkness. But you are so bright, everything about you, and I - gods, I don’t think I’ll ever be enough. There’s this light, blinding, shining bright, that comes from you. But see, James, it comes from within. It’s not the flames you carry with you, it’s not the sharp edge of your blade, the armies you brought down, the extent of your rage. 

It’s how you see the world, and me, and your resilience, and your love - for Thomas, once. For me, now. For the world, for the things you lost, for everything they took from you. 

We found each other, somehow. And I think that’s right. I think that’s how it should be. I think of you braiding my hair and I think of the things I’d do with you if you were within my reach. The things I’d do _to you_. 

You know, I’ve never let anyone touch my hair. I know my mother did, when I was young - or at least, she must have. I don’t remember much about her, but I remember her voice as she brushed it and brushed it, every night before bed. She would sigh and say: “So pretty, so soft. You are so pretty and soft.” I don’t remember much of my childhood, but I remember that I didn’t want to be pretty, and I didn’t want to be soft. The curls though? Those she hated, so as soon as I could that’s what I did, I let them grow, and for a while I felt so unapologetically free. 

I’ve never let anyone touch my hair, but with you? With you it feels right, with you it feels like no effort at all. You’ve always seen the whole of me, you see me still. So I think I would like for you to braid it, and brush it even. But only if I get to braid your hair too. And if you called me pretty one night? I think, James, that I could live with that. Gladly, I could. 

There is so much to discover about you, about us. I imagine your body to be an intricate machine, a sophisticated mechanism that I need to carefully unpack. There’s nothing mechanical about you, my soft, beautiful darling, but you are so infinitely complex that no man-made technology can even come close. Still, I know you so well, I don’t need a manual for you. 

You want some data? I’ll send you into overload, I’ll play your wirings like a fiddle and you’ll beg me for mercy. I’d like it if you begged. I would kiss every inch of your skin within my reach and it wouldn’t be enough. Think of your voice, think of my voice, think of them together, flying high, reaching back centuries, millennia. 

Think of you and I, sinking the first Atlantis that ever existed. Fighting in the first Trojan war: Achilles and Patroclus? That’s us, my love, that’s me and you. The only difference I see: we don’t have to end in tragedy.

I have your letters with me, always. Somewhere the Agency can’t reach, somewhere the Commander can’t see. There’s a pouch, a tiny thing where my leg ends in nothing and it’s there that you begin; I keep you there. And I breathe you in. And I breathe you out. 

The Seeker would have to steal them from me, from my aching body, they would have to kill me while I sleep, while I dream - but don’t you know, James. I always dream of you.

Stay safe. I love you always, even if I can’t believe it sometimes.

Silver

**_From:_ ** ~~**_Captns_ ** ~~ **** ~~**_Cptsain Jambs_ ** ~~ **_Jamebs F._ **

**_To:_ ** ~~**_Long Joh-_ ** ~~ **_Silvertongue, Phthia 34P_ ** ****

My treasure, pirate treasure, cache of silver coins, dearest John Silver, 

How clever you are, my beautiful, beautiful Silver. No Seeker or Commander is a match for you, no man alive is a match for you. I really like that idea. That I’m always with you, in some little way. I wish I really could be, but. You know. Danger and all that. Though it sounds stupid, now I think of it. What could be so dangerous as to stop me from being by your side? Right now, my love, reading your letter, I feel like I could take on the whole bloody world. And yet. 

And yet, I still burn your letters, fearful. That they’ll find you. Us. You were always the brave one, my sparrow, my silverhawk. How many words with S are there? I think I’m running out. Do you ever wonder if all these words we say to each other are in limited supply and one day we will just be sending each other empty letters, staring at each other mutely? Who knows. Even if you were fully silent, I would still cherish every minute with you.

What was I saying? Oh yes. I love you. 

How can you ever say that you won’t be enough for me? How can you even imply it, how could you even think it? Gods, Silver, I -- I’m not angry, I promise you, I’m really not. Well, no, that’s a lie. I am angry. I am always angry. But not at you, my love. I am angry at whoever it was, whatever it was in your past that convinced you that you are not worthy of love and care. 

Listen to me, John Silver, because I’ll only say this once. (What am I talking about? I’ll say it however many times you need to read it or hear it. But for emphasis. You know. It’s what people do. I’m told?) If you never tell me what it is that has happened to make you believe it, I’m fine with that. But now that you have this, that you have _me_ , hold it in both your hands. Have it. You have deserved it, you have more than deserved it-- it isn’t something you have to _earn_ , for fuck’s sake. You have it. It’s yours. With absolute certainty. It’s the only thing I know for certain. 

I do love you, so much.

I often think, you know. How I’ll take care of you, when I finally get the chance to. Before meeting you, I never really thought about it -- life after the war. I always assumed I would never, well. Live to see it, I suppose. Maybe I didn’t want to. Wasn’t anything worth living for. Now, don’t get sad reading this, I know how you are. Imagine me flicking your nose if you are sad. I am. Flick!

Oh, I hope that flick didn’t hurt. Let me kiss it to make it better. Then I’ll kiss it again. Hm, that’s good. You have a very kissable nose, have I told you that? 

What was I saying? Oh, yeah, the future. Now, now I want to see it through, Silver, with you. And every day when you doubt yourself, when you sink into those dark depths where you think I can’t reach you, I will always find you. You saved me when I was drowning. I am ready to spend the rest of my life doing the same. 

As you’ll see, this letter is in the clove of an orange. I hope you’ll find it funny. Wanted you to think of me, because my hair is orange, get it? I’m going to be very, very honest with you now: I tried my best to find a carrot, but did not manage in time. It’s what a child I knew told me once, that my hair and beard are the colour of a carrot. Did you know, there’s a ridiculous and _frankly_ concerning lack of carrots in KR980? Why is that? Climate change? Or are people around here too lazy to farm root vegetables? They’re so versatile. Salads, stews, all of that. Maybe we should retire in this strand and get ourselves a nice little carrot grotto. James Flint, the carrot farmer. 

I would grow the nicest carrots. Award-winning. Nobody will have shit to say about my carrots. 

No more carrots. Back to the orange. My love, I hope the orange spills on your tongue, you devious little moonwalker you, and I hope it is bright and tangy. I am eating one as I write to you and I have a cut on my lip, from a fight two strands ago. Can you imagine how the orange stings it? I’m imagining it’s you, kissing me, still tasting like the summer sun. 

I know, I know. Fantasies like these can be dangerous. But, my dearest, everything worth doing has been worth doing in the face of a little danger.

And for you-- there’s no telling the lengths I am ready to go to for you. 

Look, once again, what you have done to me. 

Oh, there are no more tragedies in this life of ours, silvertongue. I forbid it. I think we have had our fair share of them, you and I. No. We are the most capable of them all, we know their inner workings better than anyone and that will be enough to protect us. When you and I are of the same mind, there isn’t much that can stand in our way, I feel. 

Gods, how I dream of you, though. 

I dream of you naked, of course I do. I am (mostly) human, after all. But I also dream of you in battle. How fearsome you must look, my love, bathed in the blood of your enemies. I imagine us shoulder to shoulder, I imagine the smell of gunpowder on your fingers, I imagine your lips tasting of blood. Is that wrong? Maybe. Like I said, there is something ingrained in me that is dangerous, that is monstrous. A creature, but you do not need to fear it, my swallow, my sparrow, skylark of my heart. It likes you. I promise.

I’m sorry. This letter is long and rambling. Full disclosure, beloved: I have had some rum. It’s spicy and sweet and heavy. Some of it trickles down my beard. Trickles and tickles. You would trickle and tickle all over me, wouldn’t you? You and your-- you-ness. You’re so very you. I’m losing the ability for coherent thought as this goes on. 

I love you. Have I said that already? Doesn’t matter. I’ll say it again. Because I do. I love you. You have-- with you, my tongue runs and I find myself wanting to tell you everything, every little thing. Right now, at this very moment, as I sit by this fire and think of you, I am happy. Yes, Silver. Happy. Do you know the last time I was happy? I can’t remember it. I think I had forgotten what that feels like. Can anyone be happy, in this state of millennia-spanning war? Well I don’t care. I don’t care about anyone who isn’t you. I am, right now, happy, and I am happy because I am thinking of you, John Silver. 

It’s so funny. Before, when we started writing, all my letters were so-- violent. Well, it makes sense, doesn’t it? With my name and all. The colour of my hair. It’s like I was born to set things on fire. But then you burst into my life, with your needles and spiderwebs and moonstones and now, look at me. Sending you oranges. (Not carrots, because the world is a cruel bitch.)

My point is, my love, that I think I quite like it. The fact that I can send you something sweet, something fresh. Something you can softly hold between your lips and something with a flavour to burst inside you. Something to bring you joy. Of course, I do wish it was something _else_ you were holding between your lips now. Fuck, that was inappropriate. I could probably take it out of the letter but you know what, I’m past that point now. I stand by it. 

Fuck, Silver. I just-- you know, without you, I-- you know what I’m trying to say, don’t you? You know. Please tell me you know. 

I will probably regret this when I’m sober. (Not loving you. Obviously not. Never that. The rambling. I can’t help it, when I’m slightly boozed. Sometimes, I can’t seem to stop talking.)

You said you wanted to braid my hair once. I’ve done it now, for you. You can’t see it but you can imagine it, can you? My hair is a bit short for it but it works, kind of. It’s a bit messy. I’d bet you’d do a better job. 

I love you, silvertongue. Wish you were here with me. 

With everything in me, with everything I have left to give,

Your sweet Jame

P.S. Jambes

P.P.S. Jimbs. Ah fuck it.

**__ **

[art by [@rebecca-polidori](https://rebecca-polidori.tumblr.com/) (tumblr), [@Lopteldr](https://twitter.com/Lopteldr) (twitter)]

**_From: Silver_ **

**_To: James, Babylon A323_ **

What the flying fuck- James, I’m writing to you in a rush but I cannot possibly bear to live another minute without telling you that I love you immensely, you impossible idiot. I hope the carrot I’m sending you with this letter is to your liking. 

S.

**_From: Silver_ **

**_To: James, Babylon A323_ **

James. Darling. James. 

I was in the middle of something awfully important, but the thought of leaving you hanging, of making you wait after your last letter was simply unbearable. 

I love you so much. I love you so much I feel like I can’t breathe. I want you to be inappropriate all the time, my sweet, because you being so forward is a dream come true. I sincerely hope you will be blushing like mad while reading this, because you talk of my lips and you say _me_ and _you_ but you know what I want? I want to be kneeling between your legs, I want you to lift my chin, and I will look you in the eye and as I watch the blood rising to your cheeks I want to smile my most fearsome smile and say: ‘James, make a wish.’ I wonder what that wish would be.

And, gods above, let me provide you with a limitless supply of the best rum I can possibly find if this is how I get to have you every time you have a glass. I will latch onto you and drink directly from the drops that trickle down your beard and your neck and I will stay there. My lips on your jugular, I can feel it throbbing even now, carrying your blood, keeping you alive. 

Talking of limitless supplies… James, my dear. Do you remember what the first thing was that I ever told you about me? I hope you do. I told you of the power that Long John Silver holds in his hands, I told you of what I could do with my tongue (figuratively, this time), I told you of civilisations and empires that I burned down with a simple word and yes, I admit, I was showing off. You know now that Long John Silver might be a part of me but I am not him. And yet, that power? Those words? That’s one of the very few true things that define him, and me as well. So, if you ever worry about the possibility of me running out of words -- my flint, flame, firefly, fuming, formidable, fearsome, fierce James -- then please, think again. 

You are so-- so bright, my sweet. The brightest star in the whole universe, a whole constellation, a galaxy even. Never, ever apologise for being so honest and true. Never feel any shame. Never apologise for letting yourself be seen. It’s a privilege I have somehow earned, a gift you are giving me, something so precious I cannot even begin to comprehend it.

It is so telling that when most men lose their capacity for coherent thought, all that alcohol does to you is that it lets your mind run free instead, without monsters and ghosts at your heels for once and it’s wonderful, James, and you are so immensely beautiful that it’s devastating. And I feel like the luckiest bastard in the world for having the chance to witness you like this - so… so bare, undone. 

I try to imagine you, writing this letter, your cheeks reddened by the rum and by a fire that warms you inside, and I imagine you flicking my nose and kissing it better and I don’t-- I think, anyone who ever dared, _anyone_ , James, I-- they’d be dead. People touching me, I don’t… like that. I think. I never really did. But you? You are so tender and warm and real, you… I don’t know how I’ve spent my life not being touched by you.

I want to thank you but I don’t think it would be enough. I want to kiss you stupid but I don’t think I would ever stop if I did. I just hope that one day, in that future you are envisioning for us, I will get to give you just a fraction of all the things you have given me in this letter of yours, all the things you have been giving me since the day I stole that schedule and you somehow decided that it wasn’t a day for killing, and that you’d rather write me instead.

I want you to be happy, always. I wish that there had never been a time in your life when all you knew was sadness, and grief. Or, at the very least, I wish I could have been there with you. To offer you some comfort, to hold you as you cried, to sing you silly tunes and look after you when you slept. What’s better than a one-legged pirate, looking after you? Once the monsters in the stories that mothers tell their children at night are on your side, there’s nothing really that can ever hurt you again. And I am on your side, always. I hope you know it, I hope you feel it in your bones, and I hope that nothing ever makes you doubt it. That I don’t ever give you a reason to doubt it. 

But, more than anything, I wish you would learn how to forgive yourself, just a little bit. I yearn for the day you’ll wake up, look in the mirror and see the hero of those stories instead. You are not the villain you fear you are, James, you have never been. But even if you were? I’d love you anyway. I’d love all of you, I’d choose you in every lifetime. In a way, I already did.

Gods, I don’t even… I am trying to gather all the words I need to make you understand just how much I am shaken by this, how much I am shaken by you and I am trembling as I write this letter into a dandelion I found - I always try to send you letters threaded into objects that would remind you of me. You know this, you know how this goes. A needle, a spiderweb. But this time, my heart is bursting out of my chest and I am so impossibly in love that I wanted to send you this letter - all of me - through something that would remind you of light, of fertile soil and a future for us.

A future.

I’ll be honest with you, James, I have never for the life of me envisioned a future for myself. It’s not even that I thought I wouldn’t deserve it, or not just that. It’s not that simple. It’s that my whole life has been an impossibility; the things I have done before meeting you amount to nothing, a zero sum. And life is not always kind, it takes and takes and takes and I just -- I never learned how to stop waiting for all the things I got for myself (my name, a place in this world, you) to be taken away. I never learned how to start taking things back.

And I cannot even begin to comprehend how it is possible for you to talk to me about a future with you while rambling about oranges and carrots -- I bet you don’t even like carrots, you dipshit -- like it’s nothing, like I’m deserving of it. I don’t understand how it is that I don’t feel the impulse to run away until I am standing at the farthest point in the universe from you. I am feeling the exact opposite, in fact. 

I want to wake up with you in my bed every day for the rest of my life and I want to watch your face as you dream of me every night. I want to hold you, my sweet, and press my lips to every freckle on your shoulders. We would be naked, yes, because the mere idea of finding myself in the same room as you and having even the lightest layer of clothing on my skin standing between me and your body and every inch of you physically enrages me. I cannot bear the thought of being away from you any longer. 

Fuck the war. Fuck our Commanders. I don’t give a shit about any of them. Let’s meet, James. What about that drink? Actually, no, fuck the drink. Let’s run away together, me and you, yeah? Not now, not while it’s all so risky. But soon. And they might call us traitors for this but fuck them all, fuck their Agencies, fuck their pardons, I don’t want them and I never will. I only need you.

So this is how it goes, James. The Commander summoned me just now, there’s something important they need to tell me, and I have to go and lie to them again about my chances of success, about me finally terminating you. Before I go, I’m sending you this letter and I will be waiting for your next one, like always, with the certainty that you will find me wherever I am. No matter how remote the strand. And then we will plan, we will plot against them, and we will win. This is what we do. We are the best of them.

But James, my love, my brightest, my flame, know this: everything you are, everything you are trying to be, all that you were, your rage and your grief and all your love, so much love, I want you to know that I see all of it. I see _you_. You are no monster, you are the complexity I cannot bring myself to solve. You are all that is good and warm in this pitiful and wretched life. 

I need to unlearn how to run, how I think: but if at the end of this thread I am climbing there’s a cabin, and in the cabin there’s a man, and that man is you, then I think that’s something I am prepared to do. 

Fuck the tragedies, fuck every story ever told. There’s nothing I need to define myself by, and I am so glad I don’t feel like I have to. Every definition worth fighting for, I can find it in you. 

Until then, I am yours.

Silver

P.S. I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t misspell my name as well, but I haven’t had nearly enough rum. But that’s okay. Thinking of you makes me forget every coherent thought sometimes, and that feels very much like being drunk. I like that. I like being intoxicated by you. But then, this is not really a surprise, is it? 

**_From: Long John Silver_ **

**_To: Captain Flint, [LOCATION REDACTED AS PER: DECREE X6353, CAPTAIN BERRINGER, BR1T1SH DIVISION]_ **

Flint,

Tell me where Madi is. Where the fuck is she? Tell me right now.

Silver

**_From: Long John Silver_ **

**_To: Captain Flint, [LOCATION REDACTED AS PER: DECREE X6353, CAPTAIN BERRINGER, BR1T1SH DIVISION]_ **

Maybe your name is not James, but Judas Iscariot. And you waited this long to tell me because you knew what was coming. The betrayal. The opportunity, right there. You spoke of betrayal one time, all those strands ago, is this why? You spoke of betrayal and I thought to comfort you instead. Funny that, isn’t it? I wanted to kill everyone else, I would have burned the world down, but all this time really I should have been killing you. I never thought you could be this cruel, not when you seemed so bright.

This is the first and last warning I am ever going to give you. Where. Is. She.

As always to traitors,

Silver

**_From: Silver_ **

**_To: James, [LOCATION REDACTED AS PER: DECREE X6353, CAPTAIN BERRINGER, BR1T1SH DIVISION]_ **

James, please. I trusted you. I loved you. Please, don’t take her away from me. Please. Just tell me where, please, I’ll give you the schedule, my other leg, all that’s left of my body that wasn’t already yours, please. Please. Please.

Silver

**_From: Silver_ **

**_To: James, [LOCATION REDACTED AS PER: DECREE X6353, CAPTAIN BERRINGER, BR1T1SH DIVISION]_ **

James, I can’t - please, I’m begging you. I’m always begging you.  
  


S.

**_From: James_ **

**_To: Silver, Syracuse 01X_ **

Silver

What are you talking about? You can’t mean it, I know you can’t. You know I would never-- Silver, I would first tear my own heart out with my bare hands than betray you. 

I can’t see you. I can’t find you. Where are you? Have they taken you? This isn’t you, you don’t mean it. You can’t believe them, Silver, please. They will say anything to turn you against me. They have done it before. I am not the monster they say I am. 

Silver, where are you?

James

**_From: J._ **

**_To:_ ** ~~**_Moonlight_ ** ~~ **_J. Silver, S. 451V_ **

I love you. Please believe me. I love you. This is what they do, this is how they win. You know this. You’re too smart not to know this. This is how they take, and take, and take until there is nothing left of me to give. I have given it all to you, please believe me. 

Silver. I love you. 

**_From: Flint_ **

**_To: Long John Silver_ ** **,** **_Eurydice LM0192_ **

I just wanted--

All I wanted was for one person to see me as I am. To look past the jagged edges of me and see me for who I am, for who I once was, for who I could be. 

I feel--

This is how it was, last time. They took him from me before I could say goodbye. Before I could tell him that I loved him. You, though, you I told. I told you as soon as I could, as soon as I learned that you wouldn’t turn away from me, because I could not bear it happening again. And yet, and yet. Here I am. Again. 

And they say I’m the criminal, they say I’m the murderer. I’m so tired of them taking things, I’m so tired of being angry and I’m so tired of grief and I’m so tired of madness and I’m so tired of burning things, I’m so sick of my skin scraping against the keels of the ships as they drag me over them again and again and again and again and again until I am nothing but a ragged piece of meat. I’m tired, Silver, I’m so tired, make it stop, make it stop, make it--

Silver. Silver. Please come back. Silver. Please make them stop. Only you can, only you can saddle the tempest in me, silvertongue, silver bell, shimmering stars, sparkling sea, slithering snake, swallow’s song, salt in my wounds, soft to the touch. Silver, where are you?

Silver, when are you? 

**_From: Silver_ **

**_To: James, STRA1T OF G1BRALTAR B56_ **

James,

Love, I’m coming as fast as I can, I - please, believe me. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. It was a trap, James, a trap and I- I didn’t. I didn’t want to think that you would- but I. James, god, please, be safe. I’m coming to you, I need to hold you, I need to… I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I love you, trust that I do.

Silver

**_From: Silver_ **

**_To: James, STRA1T OF G1BRALTAR B56_ **

James I need to tell you why, I need to- I- they hurt me. They hurt me bad, once. My whole life. I don’t - You say you love me but I couldn’t bring myself to believe it, you see, because I’m a nobody, I come from nowhere. I have no history to offer you, no past, no memories, I don’t have principles, I don’t have morals, I don’t have… you are fierce, my love, and you are beautiful and incomprehensible and I could not for the life of me believe you. 

How could you ever love me, James, my sweet. The Commander said her name, she said ‘Madi’, she said ‘they have her,’ and all I could think of was how I let her down, how I have always let everyone down and then- and then I thought oh god, this is it John Silver, this is what you get for being so unlovable. 

It made more sense, James, do you understand? You loving me, it was an impossibility. One in a million. The thread you never climb because you know it never leads anywhere good. But James, oh god, I see it now. Please be alive. I need you. I’m coming for you. I love you. 

I love you. 

I’m sorry.

I love you.

* * *

 _James. James. James._ His name tastes like saltwater and old wood. It filters between the gaps in Silver’s back teeth, it sounds between his ears like a singing copper kettle that gleams, bright and beautiful, in the sun. 

_One day_ , Silver thinks, as feral as a wildcat as he climbs down the thread. _One day, when this is all over, we will run away together. We will. I will wake up next to him and his hair will be spread on the pillow and I will count all the freckles on the bridge of his nose and I will press my nose to the hollow of his throat and his eyes will be the colour of the sea at dawn and he will say--_

The thread winds down and Silver almost loses his balance. He grips onto it with both hands and his heart beats wildly in his ears. Like a funeral drum, he tries very, very hard not to think. 

_James. James._

It had all been planned to the second, from the moment he sent that last letter, with those words that had intended to wound. The Commander’s men had been tailing him all this time, a Seeker looking for traces of them. Long John Silver will kill Captain Flint, that’s what they’d said to him. And Silver hadn’t been naive enough to believe something as trivial as _prophecies,_ he thought he’d been so clever to keep their tender little love secret, keep it like a swallow in a gilded cage. Now, as he climbs down, he hears a bird sing a long, mournful tune among the threads. It is dying, he realises, and fear grips his chest in a vice. 

His prosthetic almost crumbles as he jumps down and hits the hard wooden floor of the cabin. A ship’s cabin, because of course it is. In another life it probably could have been James’, but on second thought, not really. There aren’t enough books on the walls. Not enough sunlight streaming in to dance in his hair, to make the freckles on his nose even more pronounced. 

Dark wood. Chipped wood. Light wood. Bloodied wood.

A dark figure, leaning against the desk, hand pressed against its chest. 

“James.”

The name is more of a whisper, but it’s enough. Sea-green eyes look up and meet his, and gods above, they are so beautiful, _he is so beautiful, who allowed him to be this beautiful_ , is Silver’s first crazy, spiralling thought as he realises that this is the first time he has seen James’ face. The last time he will ever see it. 

James’ hand is pushing against his neck. Next to him lie a silver switchblade, a silver bullet. Silver’s last two letters, unread -- panicked, frantic, Silver had packed them into objects that James could use to defend himself, _something, anything_. James’ blood is on them both. And while they are completely alone, the unmistakable stench of gunpowder lingers in the air, as it always does after the newest models of his Commander’s beloved RedCoats 2.0 have just paid someone a visit. 

Blood gushes from between James’ fingers and his knees buckle. Silver moves before he can think; he can’t think at all, he can’t feel. He just rushes forward and catches James as he falls.

“James,” he calls as he cradles James’ head in his hands more carefully than he’s done anything in his life. His hands are trembling but he doesn’t care. There is nothing still about him, his whole world is burning and it almost sounds like a promise, something he’d told James, many strands ago.

“James. James, my sweet, my darling, I am here. I am sorry, love, I am sorry. I love you so much, please, please.” And god, he is so beautiful Silver wants to cry. He wants to scream, rip his fucking heart out and show James that he’s real, that he’s there, that he won’t leave. “I’m here. I’m real. _Bone pressing against skin. Cartilage. Warm breath._ Remember, my love? Do you remember? James, please, please, I love you.”

James grapples for him, for his forearms, for his face, but his grip is so painfully weak. As he tries to speak, nothing but a wet gurgle comes out of him. 

“They have cut your throat,” Silver sobs, and when was it that he actually started crying? “Your voice, I never got to hear… Please, James. It will be okay. I love you, I’ll keep you safe, see?” Silver leans down, his lips on James’ forehead. There’s blood all over, it gets into his nostrils, it’s nauseating. It’s everything. Even his blood tastes of the sea.

For a long while, James does nothing. He just looks at Silver, holds his face, strokes his thumb over Silver’s cheekbone. He is looking as if he will never get tired of it, as if he could drink Silver up with his eyes alone and gods above he’s _smiling_ , even with the red between his teeth. _I betrayed you, and yet you smile at me anyway, like you love me still._

Silver sobs but doesn’t look away, keeps holding him. Slowly, with an air of finality, James takes his hand off the wound and the blood flows freely, _God there’s so much of it_ , and Silver presses on it with everything he has in him, even if he knows that it doesn’t matter, would make no difference. James’ fingers work carefully, trembling, as his thumb moves across his palm in careful circles.

He is writing, Silver realises.

James grabs Silver’s left hand. He’s trembling, Silver thinks, _oh god he’s so cold_ . Their hands intertwined, the way it was meant to be, everything they went through, up to this very moment, here and now. James’ fingers, cradling Silver’s face. _Please read_ . He’s trying to say. He has no words, no voice, but Silver knows. _Please read while I am still here._

And Silver does. He squeezes James’ hand and never lets go, brings their hands together against his cheek: there’s blood there, but somehow it’s different. James’ last words, the sound of a promise. 

_I will always love you,_ the note on James’ palm says.

And then. Inhale. Exhale. Nothing. 

Silver feels the tremor start in his missing shin and go all the way up to his head. Breathless, nauseous, he kisses James’ eyes, the corner of his mouth, the crook of his nose, the tip of his ear. _My love_ , he says with every press of lips. _My love. My love. My only love. My James._ Then, he presses his face into the bloody mess of James’ neck and howls. 

_This is how they win,_ he thinks. _I loved, and I hoped, and he died, and it wasn’t enough._ This is how they win. 

**_End of Part 1_ **


	2. but oh god, do i wish we could win

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to all the people who read this chapter and gave us feedback, to [@gearsystem](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gearsystem/pseuds/gearsystem) who is our sensitivity reader, to Matt who edited this work for us, and many thanks to all the people who liked, shared and commented when we published part 1.
> 
> Art for part 2 is by the wonderful [@SAMH0UND](https://twitter.com/SAMH0UND)!
> 
> Stay tuned for the epilogue, coming next Sunday at 7pm GMT, and do leave us a comment or a kudos if you enjoy our work. It means a lot!  
> tim&phae

There’s silence after that. Too much silence.

There’s silence as Silver cradles James’ lifeless body to his own, and it’s still warm but not nearly enough. There’s no air in James’ lungs, no life behind the green of his eyes. There are Silver’s letters rolling next to him, and god, James didn’t even get to read them. 

There’s an opportunity, then there’s a betrayal.  _ And this time, the betrayal is all mine _ , Silver thinks, and it hurts like a thousand needles under his fingernails, it hurts like that time he was six and his mother was dead and he was alone and the world was a scary place, but not nearly as scary as loneliness, not nearly as scary as nothingness. 

He needs to climb the thread, he needs to - something, anything, he wants to scream his heart out and  _ god, is this what losing Thomas was like? Is this what losing me was like, for a second, an eternity, a lifetime?  _ He knows the Agency will be at his heels, and the Commander’s men are anything but naive; this world will soon disappear, burnt down to ashes as it always happens when a strand is won, cut off from the main thread so that it can never be changed again. It will burn soon, so that there is no way for Silver to travel back through it, to stop them and save James. This strand will burn, and James will be dead, and no one on either side of the time war will be able to do anything about it. 

_ Ironic, my love, that you won’t be the one to start this fire. What I would give for you to be the one to draw the spark. What I would give to be killed by you instead. _

He brings his lips to James’s fingers one last time, kisses them bloody, licks them clean. Even his blood tastes like seawater. 

“I was going to wake up next to you,” Silver whispers into James’ cold palm. “I was so close to doing this for the rest of my life. You would have been splendid and fierce, my sweet, and I would have bathed in your wholesomeness, lying between your naked thighs. What would that have been like, hm? Me, with my nose pressed in the jut of your hipbone. I would have gladly died in the spaces between your body and the world and it would have been enough. I would have died happy, and I had never dared dreaming a death so sweet, before I met you. James. James. Forgive me, James.” __

One last story, he thinks, there’s time for that. He tells the story of two men in a world that’s burning down to its very core, navigating from the light into the darkness and then back again. One was a pirate captain, the other his quartermaster. And he tells the story of the truths they’ve encountered, and one of them is this: there are no monsters under the bed, not anymore. There is only love and then there is only loss.

And the story goes like this: they were meant to be the end of each other but they couldn’t bring themselves to, not this time. So they fell in love instead. One of them was the best navigator ever born, the other could spin the winds to his liking so that they would never get stuck at sea. And the wind listened, and it carried them around. They hunted sharks and whales and made clothes and capes out of their fishy scales, they found a home at the edge of the world and retired there, and ate way too many mangoes and oranges and they laughed and kissed and they made love but it was never enough. 

Their ship was called The Walrus, and she was a powerful, untamed thing, she travelled the world and the seven seas and faced ship-killing storms and pirate hunters and mutinous crews and the goddamn British navy and always came to the other side unscathed. But the day the pirate captain died, that was the day she sank. 

The quartermaster remembered that love is an act of rebellion, that resilience is beautiful when it’s unleashed. Like rage, like the sea. So he raised the black one last time, with the naked body of his lover in the belly of the ship, his fiery hair braided with flowers and stardust. So he sailed to the deepest ocean, under the most scorching sun, and looked at what remained of his life and watched his love sink into the abyss. 

Silver threads his last love letter into the foam of the sea.  _ Sit tibi mare levis _ , he writes, as James’ body is swallowed by the waves. Sinking like every Atlantis he had ever flooded, in a thousand different strands, in every lifetime. He never did know that it could be so painful to lose something so beautiful. Loving James had felt inevitable. Losing him, it feels like the end of the universe. Maybe it is.

_ I’ll love you forever. But I’ll never love again.  _

He smiles as he gets up, wet and ugly. Only the horizon on sight now, meaningless and empty. He gets up as flames start to engulf everything, eating up the edges of the strand until there is nothing left but ashes. He wishes he could burn as well, if only he had enough courage in his heart to withstand that kind of pain. If only he were a brave man. If only he were half as fierce, half as wholesome as James had been. He could do it. 

But he isn’t, and he doesn’t. So he gets up, and he climbs up the thread.

Then, he kills.

* * *

The flag that he had clumsily threaded himself doesn’t come down from the foremast of the ship that Silver steals. Skeleton, sword and hourglass. Silver isn’t quite sure why he picked it. It came to him in a dream, perhaps. Not that he dreams. Not anymore. 

Silver rides and Silver kills. 

He takes a ship to the salty waters of Nassau Z20A and drowns them in blood. He does not care who it is that he is killing, whether it is friend or foe. Most of the time, Silver doesn’t even think: he is watching himself from the side, his hunched form, his pale knuckles around his crutch, the gleaming tip of his blade -- a cold, hard promise of vengeance. It comes down, and down, and down. 

If he blinks, if he focuses hard enough, he can see a scar on his own face, a ghostly shape of a second leg in the empty space under his stump. He can see Long John Silver.  _ He has a scar on his face, I think. He has two feet. He tries to reason with me, to tell me we are the same, to make me feel comfortable. He is nothing like you, because you have never made me feel comfortable for a second in my life.  _ Once he is done, once there is not a single living soul left, he sets it all on fire and weaves a love letter from the ashes. 

Silver rides and Silver kills. 

The Commander praises him with her typical tyrannical glee. He has always had so much potential, she tells him, he has always been so strong, so steadfast, so determined. She never doubted him for a second, she says. He was made for this. He was made to kill. After all, he killed Captain Flint, did he not? Who could stand in his way now that the fiercest monster that has ever fought in the time war has been slain? 

And would he like a new prosthetic, since his old one was so tragically lost at sea? No, no thank you, Mr. Long is doing quite alright with his crutch, actually. Silver’s jaw clenches so hard he can taste blood. Under the stump of his knee, the small pouch of James’ letters, of all that is left of James’ love and James’ heart, burns his scarred skin. 

Madi knows. He does not know how she knows, but she knows. In the dark of the night, she whispered to him that she had been sending her own letters to Flint, that they have been planning an end to this, that they have secretly been working towards the same goal. Silver is not surprised. He has always known they would get along, and he has always had the unfortunate habit of falling in love with impossible people, who burn brighter than the sun. But now, Madi grieves, too, and faced with her grief, Silver feels slightly less wretched. Slightly less alone. 

Ever since he ran into her in Eurydice LM0192, wide-eyed and frantic (“What are you doing here?” “Looking for you!” “I’m looking for  _ you _ ! It’s a trap, Silver, it’s Flint, they’re going to--” No, he will not think of this, he will not imagine the fear and the pain and the cold, oh gods,  _ he had been so cold _ ), her intelligent eyes have not left his face. Without asking any questions about what he’s done, she dresses his wounds. At night, when he screams, she stands at the doorstep and watches. He doesn’t beckon her forward. She doesn’t touch him. She is just there: a solid, steady comfort. 

One night, he wakes with a start and sees something by his pillow. A bright orange feather from a tropical bird. It is a letter, from James to Madi. Silver doesn’t read it. He simply cradles it in his hands, breathes it in, thinks of James’ hands, of his words, and he weeps, and he weeps, and he weeps and he thinks he may never stop. 

The morning comes. Silver gets up and continues killing. 

* * *

On Troy MN776 the fighting never stops. 

Two armies, caught in an eternal battle. Every day, their casualties come back from the dead, pick up their weapons and go back into the fight. On Troy MN776, no one can die. On Troy MN776, no one can live. The strand itself is nothing spectacular. There’s no white marble walls, no bards, no encampments or ditches. Nothing at all. There’s just a field, two armies, blood, shit, viscera, the blackened points of arrows, spears, swords. Death. 

All the soldiers are faceless, covered in grime behind their helmets. There is one, dressed in a shining, beautiful armour, who is beckoning them forward with fear in his voice that only Silver can hear. He is not meant to be there. He is not meant to be fighting, he is not good at it; but he is doing it to save the man he loves from a terrible fate. Silver knows. Oh, he knows. 

Every day, the boy gets stabbed in the chest by another man with a horsehair helmet. He begs, begs him not to,  _ don’t, he will kill you--  _ but the result is always the same. Again, and again, and again. 

On Troy MN776, it’s always the day Patroclus dies. 

This strand exists in singularity. It cannot be unspooled. It cannot be unwoven. It does not burn. Silver has tried. Gods above, has he tried, he has tried to save the boy’s life. But nothing works. Nothing happens. 

So he gives up and kills instead. He joins the fight with a razor-sharp sword and a blade instead of a leg. The soldiers on the field, Greek and Trojan alike, think him a vengeful, merciless god become flesh. For a moment, Silver thinks they are right, though his godliness is all pretend, really. The real god among men died-- when had he died? Where? Silver no longer remembers. He just kills. 

Once the battlefield is ablaze and the corpses burn he stands in the middle of it, alone. The setting sun bathes him in orange light and if he closes his eyes just so, he can imagine that it’s just copper hair curling on the nape of a freckled neck. He can imagine…

_ “Good morning. Sleep well?” _

_ “Mm, good morning. I probably should have said. I like sleeping in. I like it a lot actually.” _

_ “Do you, now? Well, I get up early. I always have.” _

_ “What a shame. Whatever shall we do, now that we’re this incompatible?” _

_ “Ah, would you like me to stop what I’m doing, then? I’m more than happy to, you know. I would just--” _

_ “No. Don’t you dare. God, James, I-- you know, I really --” _

_ “I know. Silver. I know.” _

Silver opens his eyes. If he were crying, there would be no one to see it, but he is not. He thinks that perhaps he must have a finite capacity for crying. He thinks he must have cried himself dry a long time ago and now all that’s left inside him is this gaping, festering void. 

At the corner of his eye, there’s a movement. 

It’s brief and fleeting, like a sparrow’s shadow, but it catches the edge of Silver’s awareness nonetheless. There is something-- something not quite--

_ A shadow. A ghost. A breeze of wind, a smell of a candle just extinguished. _

Silver knows Seekers, of course, and not just because James told him about them. Both Agencies use them because that’s what they are there for -- to be used, to flush out the dissidents, to assure compliance. Faceless, nameless, more fleeting than a dash of smoke. He used to care, before; the thought of one of these phantoms discovering the most fragile and precious part of his heart terrified him all the way down to his marrow. Now, he thinks, why not. Why not. Why the fuck not. 

The Seeker does not approach, and it is gone as quickly as it appeared. A shift in the air, a change of its weight, a smell of ozone. Two objects roll towards him and tap against the tip of Silver’s single boot. 

A candle stub. A blackened match. 

Silver gasps as he bends down. Catches them with trembling hands, runs his fingertips against the uneven surface of the match, against what remains of the candle’s wax -- it’s still warm, and god, he doesn’t dare hope. And yet he does. He scratches the words lined up the one after the other with his nail, darkened by blood and dust. They still smell like seawater, and isn’t that a miracle in itself. 

Silver takes a deep breath. He looks back at Patroclus’ body, lying lifeless on the battlefield, the blood still oozing out of his gut. He thinks he can hear Achilles’ rage, down the thread, he’s heard him scream before, he’s heard him weep. It sounds dark and choked, like a mouth pressed against a neck full of blood. He thinks he knows what that’s like. 

On Troy MN776, it’s always the day Patroclus dies, and Silver thinks,  _ the only difference I see: we don’t have to end in tragedy. _ He thinks that must be the biggest lie he’s ever told. He thinks, maybe it doesn’t have to be. 

Breath in. Breath out. 

He thinks of James. He thinks of his smile. He thinks of all of their letters weaved out of space and time itself. He is not brave enough. After all the killing, after all the bloodlust, he still thinks that he probably won’t ever be. So he takes the candle and the match - James’ last words in this and every Earth-, he takes them to his lips, and he reads them. 

**_From: James F._ **

**_To: J. Silver, St. Augustine LK1280_ **

John, my beloved,

I swear to any and all gods, I have never blushed as bright and as red as I did when I received that carrot of yours. I am the luckiest man in the world, sweetheart, to have you. As instructed, I will not apologise. I will simply save every smile you gave me with that letter for the moment I can finally hold you in my arms. They all belong to you. 

I am in a rush, Silver, but I do have a story for you still. I think you will like this one.

Today I went to KY9102. It’s an unexplored strand and the Agency wanted me to investigate if the Commander’s reach has extended that far or whether it’s something we can use as a base. In my report, I lied to them, Silver. I told them it wasn’t safe. That it was so full of RedCoats 2.0, that I had barely gotten out alive, that we should stay as far away from it as possible. 

It’s so beautiful, my love, my silver blade, my spiderweb. An island in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by the sea that’s the colour of your eyes. The woods are thick, so thick you can barely see the sky, until you come to a clearing and suddenly there it is, bright and wide and beautiful. The air, Silver, the air is so clean, too. You know how in most strands all you can smell is tar, coal, shit, blood? Not there. All that’s there are green, growing things. Blessed silence, but for the whisper of wind in the trees. 

I have decided, Silver, that this place, this forgotten island will be our home. It will be ours. I will take you there and I will take you in my arms and I will never let you go. There is a house there. It is empty, but that does not matter. I will make us a bed. We can spend our days there tangled in crisp white sheets, wrapped in the smell of cedar and sex and freshly baked bread. I will cook for you, yes. I am a man of many talents, believe it or not. Every morning I will wake you up with breakfast and a kiss and every night I will tell you how much I love you as we watch the constellations. I will catch your hand and trace them with your finger, I will show you the way I see your face in every single one. 

Yes, Silver. My answer is yes. I want this, all of it, and I want it with you. Let’s disappear to a place where all our sins are forgiven and we can have our happy ending. Where all I need to care about is you, our love, about how I’ll make you smile for the rest of your life. Let’s just be together. Everything else can go to hell. 

My darling, my dearest, every day I will remind you just how much you mean to me, how you are the brightest star in my universe. I will fall on my knees for you and I will worship you, with my hands, with my mouth. I will envelop you, I will hold you where you are safe and warm. I will live the rest of our lives with the taste of your blade in my mouth and, when the end comes, I will lie down with you in a shallow grave and close my eyes and rest. Let them find us there, our rib cages tangled and flowers growing through our pelvic bones. You and me, together. 

With my love, always,

James

**_From: James F._ **

**_To: Silver, Marseille XN1039_ **

Moon of my life, 

I try not to worry, when I do not hear from you. I know how capable you are, and I know you must be careful, which is what I asked you to do. And yet, and yet: the absence of your words burns me like a blade of fire. I just want you to know that you are in my thoughts, always. 

If you are-- if this is too much, too soon, I will understand -- Silver, I will. It happens, people change their mind about such things. What a trivial thing to worry about, is it not? You, getting cold feet. I’m sure you would make some kind of distasteful joke here about your number of feet and I’m telling you now, I’m not having it.

I understand, my stars, if you would rather wait. Until you feel safer with me. Or until we get the right opportunity. I understand and I will wait with you, for you. I will wait an hour, a day, a week, a month, a year, a century, a lifetime, however long it takes. Anything for you. Anything. 

My love, my life, my liar, my lithograph, my longing. 

Speak soon,

James 

* * *

There’s an island, in Strand KY9102. An island that James had sought out, protected, hid from the world.  _ Gods, we could - we could have run away. He and I, we could have.  _

There’s an island somewhere, and it smells like the sea, it smells like home and safety and there’s no blood there, there are no weapons there, nor bodies, nor corpses, no spears and battlefields. There’s just a cabin. A bed. Warm bread. Warmer hands. Cold toes, maybe -- he imagines James probably had cold toes, the only part of him that does go cold. He imagines massaging them, rubbing warmth into them, palm going over the gentle arch of his foot. Silver imagines holding James as they sleep, imagines curling deep into the marrow at the base of his spine. 

_ I hurt him. I hurt him so bad.  _ And time is a funny thing, and despite everything he cannot bring himself to forgive his own suspicious nature, the gears in his brain that wouldn’t stop and led him to this, to this moment on this eternal battlefield suspended in time, bloodied from head to toe.

He hears a voice, then. It’s not real but it could be. It’s just in his head but it could be all around. It goes like this:  _ I loved you always, I loved you forever. And you hurt me but they hurt us first. And I just wanted to love you, Silver, but it can still be enough.  _ And it’s true. It’s so much bigger than they are, it always has been, the Commander knew this, and she exploited it.

And Silver cannot physically think about this, cannot -- can’t -- it  _ hurts, fuck, it hurts _ , but if he hadn’t been so convinced of being terribly undeserving of love, and if only he had made himself believe, deep down to his bones, his circuits, his muscles and spinal system, that he could have let himself be loved, too, and learned to accept it… if he hadn’t. If he had. Then... maybe he wouldn’t have doubted James. He wouldn’t have doubted himself. 

_ You’d be alive. James, love. You’d be alive. And I am so tired of living in a world where I didn’t let myself be loved by you. _

There’s clarity, then. He’s been running his whole life, up and down endless threads, hundreds of lifetimes. And James was right, there’s a darkness in him, and it scares him and it consumes him. It’s like the ashes left behind by something that runs much deeper and that is much scarier than his own shame and guilt.

There’s an island somewhere, and it waits for him. And he thinks,  _ gods, I don’t want to run anymore _ . And it’s almost easy, then, to let go. Easy as breathing. Easy as kissing bloodied fingers the moment life leaves them and moves on. Silver drops his sword, he throws away his weapons. 

He hates his missing leg, he hates the phantom pain that keeps him up at night, he hates this half-human slayer thing he’s become. But then: his leg turning crushed bone and blood and meat, his leg turning into something good and pure like saving James before losing him to the war and their Commanders, must have been the easiest thing he’s ever done in his life. The truest, and it makes him feel real.

James has always told him that he’s so very real.

It’s easy then. Easy to go. He climbs down the thread to Strand KY9102. James won’t be there with him, perhaps, but he carries with him still. Like a locket, in his ribcage. Like a stash of letters in the pouch where his stump ends. Like a silver lining and a red thread. Such is life. Such is death.

* * *

There’s an island in the middle of nowhere, and on the island is a chest. Silver can’t think, can’t fucking breathe, the air stuck between his lungs and his throat and fuck, what if he dies like this. He’s on the brim of exhaustion, he feels like he hasn’t slept in centuries and it’s probably true. 

But on the island there’s a chest. And the chest is lined with silk, crimson red, and in it there are letters, hundreds of them. 

_ I am full of regrets but you’re not one of them _ , says a sea-smooth pebble, which still smells damp and salty. 

_ I want to dance with you the way Thomas taught me to  _ is in the seeds of a pomegranate that spills like heartsblood on Silver’s tongue. _ And don’t worry, you have one leg but I have two left feet. We’ll make do.  _ And gods, Silver does chuckle at that. 

He can see the chest for what it is: it’s a promise, it’s James’ heart. But most of all, it’s a future. It’s a future for them. It’s a future for Silver, where he doesn’t have to worry about being defined by the past. 

In the ridges of a seashell Silver reads:  _ I know now why you led me on that wild goose chase between the strands, to chase that fucking schedule. You wanted to show me what you could not bear to say out loud. And I saw it, Silver, my love, I understood it. And I am here to tell you to stop being an idiot. Nothing you show me will make me turn away from you. Nothing in your past, your present or your future will scare me away, or convince me that you are not worth my love. You are worth everything, John Silver, and I would give you the breath in my lungs if I could. You belong with me, and the moment I have you in my arms, I will spend the rest of our miserable lives convincing you of it. I love you. I love you. I love you.  _

And  _ fuck _ , Silver thinks, how can a future be so bright when it doesn’t even exist anymore, not here and not there? 

_ There’s something that sits wrong with me,  _ Silver reads between the dregs of Redbush tea at the bottom of an old teacup. _ About tragedies, I mean. And it’s very simple, really: Hadrian and Antinoo, Achilles and Patroclus, Alexander and Hephaestion, they never knew how good they had it until they lost it. Did they? But you and I, Silver, you and I -- how could I not know, after all this time? Some tragedies require an impossible sacrifice. But I was always ready to give you everything I had, right from the start. Some tragedies require an impossible sacrifice. But for this future, with you? I’d give it all away. For you? There’s nothing I wouldn’t do. And you?  _

Silver reads again, and again, and again, until the leaves are all but dust under his fingers.  _ For you, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do.  _ There’s James in that chest, the most precious treasure, all the versions of himself he’s ever been. Along with this future. Along with his sacrifice. Along with his lost love. And Silver sees it, then. And it’s obvious, really. It should have been from the start. 

He sits down on the beach, sandgrains in hand and starts spinning them, spirals raising from the ground, lifting and falling, lifting and falling. He weaves a silvery spider web, kneading it with seawater and the blood that has long dried on his fingers. It has never felt this right to say goodbye.

**_To: James Flint_ **

James. 

I hope I didn’t make you doubt my love, as you died. I hope you didn’t die alone. I hope there was still enough of your soul in you when I found you in that cabin. 

I want you to know that I figured it out. On this island, looking at this chest, looking at you. I figured it out. I will follow the path. The one whose shape you showed me all those strands and letters ago. I will follow it until I find you again and give you what you wanted. I will give you peace. 

I read your words, almost felt your touch through them, warm and real, and I cannot begin to fathom that there was ever a time when we were this happy and bright. It almost feels unreal, maybe it is. But no, it’s true, it’s as you said: there are so many things left of us in this universe, so many fragments of our time together, almost as much as there would have been if we had ever gotten to live that life you were dreaming for us. 

I am so ashamed I ever doubted you. I want to bury this chest of yours and me with it and let it be the end of our story. The end of Long John Silver and Captain Flint. Feels like something worth dying for.

But there is a way out for you, my sweet, there is. Isn’t that what love is, in the end? You said that there’s nothing you wouldn’t do. For me. And I -- I will give you all of me. I will give you more than I thought I had in me. More than I have ever given anyone. 

I found your Seeker. It was in Troy, and now that I think of it, I knew it would be there. It brought me to this island, and it’s time I gave it all back. I’m tired of hiding, my sweet, so I’ll scream instead. This legend of ours, I’ll give it to the Seeker. Let it rub its body all over the ashes of us. Let it. Let them have it. Nothing matters anymore.

I’ll give you a story, and this one tastes like flames and finality. I’ll write myself out of it, and then I shall gift it to you. One more letter, my love, then I’ll burn them all. There’s an opportunity, there’s a betrayal, and then there’s a sacrifice. This is mine.

I didn’t love you first, but I’ll love you forever. Even when you will not remember that I ever did.

Always I remain

Yours,

Silver

* * *

Silver gets up. A knife is in his hand. He thinks of a blade in James’ mouth as he takes out and sets fire to the pouch of letters that hangs next to his running blade. He thinks of blood that tastes sweet as he burns the letters inside the chest. He thinks of James braiding his hair as he cuts his curls and leaves them on the sand, adds them to the burning pyre and leaves.

Silver climbs up the thread. 

As he disappears, the Seeker steps out onto the beach, tall and gracious. Its steps do not leave footprints in the sand. It spends some time looking at the sea with an odd, sickly set to its broad shoulders. A wave of its hand makes the fire die to shimmering golden embers. Then, slowly, it bends down and gathers up the ashes of the burnt letters and what is left of Silver’s curls. With shaking hands, it splits every hair and winds them into braids, with the specks of sand flecked between them.

The Seeker climbs down the thread. 

* * *

In Bedlam LX019, Thomas Hamilton stares down the barrel of a silver flintlock and prepares to die. 

He had known that this was coming. From the moment that they had dragged him away from his home, had threatened him with what he holds most dear -- he had known that this was coming. He blithely wonders what they have told James and fears that his love will find out the truth and then unleash upon the world the demons he keeps so well hidden inside of him. Not that Thomas cares much about this world that had seen it fit to have him shot in a prison cell like a lame horse. No, above all things, as always, it is James that he cares for, it is James that he loves and it is James that he wishes to keep safe. 

They took him before he could even leave a note. Something, anything, other than this horrible, sudden loss. 

Thomas grinds his jaw. He will not cry. He will not beg. If he is to die, he is going to die in the knowledge that his fight was justified and that his love was real. That he is dying because he was trying to do the right thing.

That has to count for something, right?

The gun clicks and Thomas closes his eyes. He wonders if, once his head is nothing but blood, bone and sinew, someone could write James a letter from his remains. He wonders how he would make such a request, who would deliver it. Better to banish the thought away; instead, he visualises the one darker freckle that lives near the gentle curve of James’ hip and tastes like morning coffee. 

There is no pain. Thomas is relieved. He never was much good with pain. 

But there is no sound either, and that, that is wrong. As little as he knows about the practical side of warfare, he knows this much: guns make noise.

The only noise he can hear is an odd, choked gurgle, coming from where he would have been expecting the bang. 

Slowly, carefully, Thomas opens his eyes. The fact that he can do so is encouraging. His jailer is still pointing the gun at him but it’s at an odd angle now, aiming somewhere above Thomas’ shoulder. On the man’s throat, a long red line begins to bloom, like the skewed smile of a harlequin. It widens and widens as blood begins to splash on the metallic sheen of the cell.

Thomas blinks. The guard falls down and begins to convulse. The man with one leg wipes his blade and his eyes meet Thomas’. 

“Are you Thomas Hamilton?” 

His voice cuts deep, like a long serrated blade. It’s meant to frighten, Thomas realises, to make the man look bigger, taller than he is. He has one leg, yet he does not seem to carry a crutch, or anything else to help his balance. As he focuses in the near darkness, Thomas sees the shimmering outline of a thin blade-like prosthetic.

“Who needs to know?” 

The man scowls. It is oddly charming. He pushes his short curly hair out of his eyes and stares down at Thomas. 

“You’ve got a beard. I never imagined you with a beard.”

Thomas has no idea what to make of that. “Who are you?” 

“They call me Mr. Long. I’m here to get you out. To return you where you should be.”

There is something. Something about this man that feels familiar to Thomas, like a prickling under his skin. But he has no time to think about it. 

“More will come,” he says instead. “We need to move if we don’t want to be facing a dozen more guards.” A pause. “You know, whoever you are, if you do get me out of here, the Commander’s entire fleet will be after you. They will not stop until they’ve tracked you down and killed you. Are you-- are you aware of that?”

Mr. Long smiles but it isn’t really a smile born out of happiness. It’s full of teeth. It’s much like how a shark would smile if it could, Thomas thinks, though he does not quite know how the analogy came to him. 

“Anything worth doing has been worth doing in the face of a little danger.” And gods, doesn’t that sound like something James would say.

With an expert twist of his sword, the stranger snaps the shackles around Thomas’ wrists. Thomas stands, rolling his shoulder to get the stiffness out. He is extremely aware that Mr. Long is watching his every move. 

“Where are we going?”

Mr. Long tilts his chin up. Thomas follows his line of sight and he sees it, weaving just between one of the impenetrable walls of the prison. Just enough to catch. Just enough to hold. 

A thread. 

“After you,” the handsome stranger says. “And we can get to know each other along the way.”

* * *

“Where are we going?”

“Savannah X7812.”

“Savannah. May I ask why?”

“They won’t think to look for you there. It’s in one of the demilitarized zones. It’s difficult to access. They don’t know it exists. I’ve made sure it’s safe, so they won’t find you.” 

“Who won’t?”

“The Agencies. The Commanders. Our side. Their side. Whoever the fuck.”

“And why do you--”

“Mind your step.”

“Why do you care so much about whether the Agencies or the Commanders find me, Mr. Long?”

“You ask a lot of questions.”

“I’ve been told.”

“It’s not you I’m trying to hide, though your presence will help keep him hidden. It will help keep him safe.”

“Who?”

A pause. A breath. Thomas is so tense, he feels as if his heart has lodged itself behind his ears. 

Slowly, and very deliberately, Mr. Long replies: 

“Someone I love very, very much.” 

“So you want to hide me away with this-- person?”

“I don’t think you’ll mind when you see who it is.”

“I don’t mind now. It’s much preferable to being splattered across the walls of a prison cell. Why don’t you hide away with them, too?” 

Another pause. Another breath. 

“Just keep climbing, Lord Hamilton.”

* * *

In Savannah X7812 there is a forest. Beyond the forest is a shore and beyond the shore is the sea.

Thomas has seen the sea before. In England, the sea had always been grey and cold, the colour of steel to reflect the cloying smoke in the sky. The sky in England had not been blue for years, for centuries, choked by the smoke of artilleries and freight vehicles. Sometimes, it felt like the sea was trying to press into the small, decimated island and crush it from all sides. Thomas imagined they would all turn into fish, then -- shimmering through the waves, running to catch the currents. He always fancied himself a rainbow trout. 

Not here. Here, the sea is boundless and calm, and oh, it is so blue. It is the bluest blue that Thomas has ever seen in his life. He now understands what James had told him before, that he had eyes the colour of the sea. He breathes in the air and, oh, that is familiar too, that is the scent that would always nestle in his Lieutenant’s hair after a voyage, the scent that Thomas would chase, hungry and devout, as he pressed kisses into the nape of James’ neck. 

The waves break onto the shore into a silvery foam. 

Thomas looks at Mr. Long. The man is looking to his left and, even though he looks young, his eyes have aged centuries. The breeze catches a short curl and weaves it by his ear. Thomas finds himself transfixed by the sight.

“It’s odd,” he says, and his voice is quiet, so quiet, that Thomas doesn’t think he’s the one being spoken to here, not really. “He looks so young.”

Along his line of sight, far away into the distance, is a solitary figure, looking at the boundless blue. Even this far away, the silhouette is one intimately familiar to Thomas. He immediately recognises the rigid line in the back, drilled by years spent serving in the Commander’s Navy. The copper gleam hair, shorter than he’s ever seen it. The broad shoulders. 

“James.”

The name is but a breath on Thomas’ lips but it warms them oh so beautifully. He cannot look away from James as he feels his heart swell impossibly big, impossibly full. How long has it been? For him, it had felt like months. For James, maybe longer. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know how far up the threads Mr. Long took him, how they weaved and weaved to get here. All he knows is that in this moment, right now, James is here and Thomas is here also. It feels like an impossibility. A distant dream. A ghost. 

“He’s real. Very, very real. You should go to him. He would like to see you, I should think.”

With great effort, Thomas looks away from the lonely silhouette. Mr. Long’s face has changed. The hard lines on his forehead have melted away, his eyes have grown somehow bigger, wetter. His mouth is set in a very particular way. 

Thomas thinks. He’s good at that.

“He’s the one. The one you love.”

It’s not a question.

“I--” the other man’s breathing is shallow, coming in short bursts. “He mutinied. After he lost you. He wanted to destroy everything the Commander stands for, he was the most feared fighter of them all. I knew him by name and then I stole something from him and he started writing to me and I replied and just-- I feel like I barely know him. I don’t know him. Not the way you do.” 

Thomas considers this. He feels as if the conversation is as fragile as broken glass, as if one step will make him trip and fall and bleed all over, and he can’t do that. 

“That’s not what I asked.”

Mr. Long clenches his jaw and his breathing quickens. “Yes. Is that what you want to hear? Yes. I loved him. I love him still. I don’t think I know how to stop. He is the best part of me, the only part that’s worth preserving. That’s worth protecting. And that’s what I’m doing.”

“But… if you bring me back to him, then he will never meet you,” Thomas says gently, although he is certain that he’s not really giving the man any news. “He will never know you.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Mr. Long’s tone doesn’t suggest any room for argument. The cold edge is back into his voice, although he hasn’t torn his eyes away from James’ back. “It doesn’t matter in the slightest, don’t you see? The strand where he meets me, he-- I didn’t even get to see his face before-- they cut his throat.” The man’s voice is now short, panicked, his chest heaving. His eyes look haunted. “They cut his throat and left him bleeding, left him dying alone, and he couldn’t even say a single word to me when I found him. Do you see? He’d given me so many words, so many letters, and there I was, and he couldn’t even say a single fucking one. The only time I ever got to hold him was when he died in my arms. That sacrifice. That loss. And for what? For the fucking war?” He huffs and it is the most heartbreaking sound Thomas has ever heard. “That’s not a war. That is a fucking nightmare. I want no part in it, not anymore. Not after what it took from me.” 

“So that’s it?” Thomas asks, breathless, even though he knows there’s no point. “You will decide his destiny for him?” 

Now, Mr. Long looks at him. It is a withering, terrifying look. It makes Thomas take a step back. 

“There is nothing I wouldn’t do for him, Lord Hamilton. I would set fire to the world for him. I would cut and bind and weave the thread and the strands in any way I have to if I can save him. If I can give him his voice back. Even if it will only ever be for you. The fact that he breathes at all, somewhere, is all I need to know.” Mr. Long’s voice grows quiet and his teeth are clenched. It looks painful. “He will always be in my heart, and I will always know. I will always know what he meant to me. Do not doubt it for a second.”

Thomas wouldn’t. He wouldn’t dare.

“Now go to him.” 

Halfway through leaving, Thomas turns.

“You didn’t even tell me your name. Your real name. I know he won’t remember it. But I would like to know it. I would like someone to.” 

A pause. A consideration. If he lies, here and now, Thomas will have no way of knowing it. Still, he waits patiently. He may not have much left -- in fact, all he has left, is on a shore several feet away -- but he will always have his faith in doing the right thing. And now, this feels right. This feels like the most important thing he will ever do. 

The man looks away, as if he is deeply, deeply ashamed.

“My name is John Silver,” he replies finally. “And I would like to forget.”

* * *

When he was taken, Thomas was told, with absolute certainty, that he was mad. For some time he had even believed it, for what man would rush headfast into danger the way he had, at the time? And now, as he feels the sand shift under his feet, madness remains the easiest way to explain what is happening to him now, this feverish heat he feels under the blasting Savannah sun. This must be a dream. He has definitely had dreams like that before. Or maybe it’s a trick, maybe he has been lied to after all. Maybe he is Eurydice and the moment Orpheus turns around he will be dragged back into the underworld, with heavy restraints back around his wrists. 

But then his Orpheus turns and nothing happens. He is real, and he is there. James McGraw has always been the most solid person Thomas has ever known, and as much as he has changed, as much as sorrow has etched itself deep into the lines of his face, the certainty of him has stayed the same. 

There is a moment, in which the entire universe stands still. Where everything around him, even the sea, holds its breath. And then James lets out a strangled sob and before he knows what he’s doing, Thomas gathers him up in his arms and presses his face into his hair -- oh, that smell, of salt and old wood and sun-warmed leather -- and all he can say is  _ it’s okay, it’s okay, I’m here now _ and  _ you will never be alone again _ . 

With a twinge in his heart, Thomas considers that, after all, John Silver cannot say the same. 

* * *

The day they finally get him, Silver is waiting for them.

The day they finally get him, Silver only wishes they had come sooner.

After leaving Thomas on that beach, he told himself that it was time to go. He looked at the thread, hanging there in front of him, just waiting for him to climb it and disappear. He needed to run, he knew, he needed to hide and find an uncharted strand, a place that didn’t appear on any of the Agency’s maps. He was a traitor now and hadn’t James warned him of that, a lifetime ago.  _ I believe it was betrayal. Are you skilled in the art of it?  _

And he was, he is, that’s the thing. But he’d been right once, betrayal cuts sharper when it feels inevitable. And what had been inevitable -- on that beach, that day -- was glancing at happiness knowing he’d never get to be a part of it. He had looked at Thomas and James the way one looks at a mirage, something impossible. Something he knows he’ll never get for himself.

Thomas was tall, and broad, and had that air of rightfulness about him and he wore it the way that only great men, determined to do great things, can ever do. Like it was unavoidable. But gods, James… James looked like Flint and yet he was someone entirely different. He was young, and knew tragedy, but he didn’t know evil, or rage. 

Silver had looked at them together, at the joy in their eyes, and he’d looked from afar.  _ This moment, right now, this sacrifice you are doing to save him is the best and the worst you’ll ever be. And what hurts the most is, he’ll never even know. _

He is looking even now. In his head, that is. He doesn’t have James’ words to get him by, not anymore. All he had, he’d burned on that beach, buried next to Captain Flint’s treasure and all that remained of him. But the sight of them together, the way they fit in each other’s arms. Four arms, four legs, Plato’s goddamn perfect man. And then Silver looks down on himself, two thighs, one foot. Then what? A hole shaped like a pirate captain right next to his heart. He has never been good at anything but surviving, and giving them this? This happy ending, a life together, like it’s easy, like it’s nothing, fuck, it has to be the most cowardly thing he’s ever done. 

The day they get him, Silver is glad. It’s both Commanders leading the charge. Lieutenants, officials, the whole fucking cavalry waiting for him. The thought of putting up a fight crosses his mind, but he doesn’t. Let them have him, let them kill him for what he cares. 

He thinks of Madi, for a second. He thinks,  _ I’m sorry I let you down. But with you I felt human. With him, I felt like a star, a fucking supernova.  _

“Long John Silver, you have been charged with high treason, and we sentence you to die.” 

Silver smiles a terrible smile.

“We’ve been fighting this war for centuries, for ages, for millennia. But it only takes half a man for you to come together and decide that one death is worth all this destruction. Do as you wish. You might think I am yours now, but I was never yours to begin with.”

They take him away in chains, they take away his prosthetic and give him no crutch to stand on. He loses his balance at every step, forced to lean on the guards that hold him by his elbows as they move forward, up the thread. If it’s humiliation they want, Silver can take it. It’s not worse than what he has already inflicted upon himself. 

They throw him in a cell, small and dark and cold, no light, barely enough air to breathe at all. He thinks,  _ this is it _ , and forces that smile on his face yet again. He’ll wait an hour, a day, a year, but the end will come and it will be fast. The Agency doesn’t like inefficiency, and he’s only glad to let go.

But the smile crumbles, hard and fast, the moment his Commander approaches him, lifts his chin with a single metal finger, bares her teeth like a feline before her pray and hisses, then smiles, then looks at him in the eye and whispers, “You wish to die, Long, and you are dead to the world. But for me, you’ll stay alive. And you’ll wish to be dead every day of what remains of your life. You are mine, still attached to me like an infant to their mother through the umbilical cord. I will choke you with it, I’ll cut you to pieces and I’ll have them regrow, painful and fast, and I’ll cut them again. Ever heard of Prometheus? I know you like tales, but this is a story you’ll never get to tell.”

Silver wants to protest, to refuse -- not to beg, never to beg. But she takes his voice away with a flick of her wrist. “I’ll give it back later. After all, Long, I do so want to hear you scream.”

* * *

Thomas watches James watch the world. 

It has been ten years, for him, without Thomas, years in which he had thought him dead. One day, maybe, Thomas will be able to absolve himself from all the pain he had put him through, all for the sake of a pipe dream that had led them both to nothing. But they don’t talk about it. They don’t talk about the journeys they have taken between the strands, the lives they have led, the people they have and haven’t met. For the first few days, there’s actually very little talking involved at all. It’s mainly whispered reassurances on Thomas’ side, quiet hands in the dark, mapping, exploring, feeling. John Silver did a good job at hiding them. They have not seen another living soul. The silence that blankets them feels warm and heavy and the air is sweet with the smell of wildflowers. 

With shaking hands and uncertain lips, James traces patterns into Thomas’ skin that tell him the story of what happened to Miranda. Thomas can’t breathe for the pain of it, the sharp ache that echoes in his soul. He thinks, wretchedly, again, about guilt. As if he can tell, James tightens his hold on him, lays a warm, naked thigh over Thomas’ legs and places a hand over his heart. 

They sleep under the stars. Savannah feels like an in-between place, an Eden that John Silver created just for them. Thomas traces the well-known constellations on James’ chest. There’s no need for words.

And when the need arises, the words don’t seem to come.

It’s not that James wouldn’t communicate at all. When Thomas asks him a question he replies, mostly with short, clipped nods or shakes of his head. If something needs doing, Thomas asks and James does it. It is as simple as that. For a while, Thomas lets him be and he doesn’t question it, he decides that they both deserve to recover, they both deserve to rest, and if James finds his rest in this silence, then so be it. 

But this doesn’t feel like rest. There is something volatile and broken in the spaces between their bodies. There is something about the tightness of James’ mouth.

They need to run, get away from these endless fields, this oppressive heat. But the moment Thomas mentions it, James looks away. He is looking, Thomas realises, at the cliffside where he first saw him waiting. It occurs to him that he didn’t know what it was that James was waiting for. Who he was waiting for. How he got here, in the first place. There is so much he doesn’t know.

They don’t run. 

In the corner of Thomas’ eye, a thread dangles. 

Often, James’ eyes get lost into the middle distance with that well-loved sharp concentration. Once, his fingers find a silver spiderweb on the ground. His heart beats ferociously, unevenly under Thomas’ palm at the sight of it. He says nothing. 

“You know,” Thomas whispers, with lips pressed to his lover’s temple, as they sit together on the beach and watch the pale foam of the waves. “You can tell me. Whatever it is that’s torturing you, whatever it is that you’re feeling. You can tell me.”

James looks at him then and his eyes are wide, frightened, as if the sheer thought of giving a voice to that wild heartbeat terrifies him. His hands rub through the sand, but he’s not writing, he hasn’t been able to, not since that first night -- his fingers are too unsteady. Then, James makes a single sound, it’s like a wet, strangled gurgle but not quite. The kind of sound one would make if they were walking the world with their throat cut, bloodied and real. And isn’t that something, Thomas thinks. 

_ He’d given me so many words, so many letters, and there I was, and he couldn’t even say a single fucking one,  _ Thomas hears in a dream.  _ They cut his throat. He died in my arms. It’s a fucking nightmare. _

His eyes shoot open. 

It’s night and they have fallen asleep in a field of wildflowers. The smell blankets Thomas in that familiar, heavy comfort that he has come to associate with their days in Savannah. A meaningless, quiet existence, where they both wander, have wandered for days. It only hits him now, the soporific nature of their lives. He thought they’d needed rest. That they had needed time, to become themselves again. 

All the time in the world is theirs, and yet there is too much of it. It is so heavy it chokes them and in the vibrations of the earth, they can both feel a truth, whispered quietly into the rainfall, into the wind. They can feel an echo of-- something. Something immutable. Something real. 

Thomas Hamilton is nothing but a man of action. With a sudden clarity of mind, as he curves his spine against the vibration of the soil beneath him, he knows exactly what he needs to do. 

He thinks of blue, cold eyes that look dead but in fact shine like a dying star, a black hole, a fucking supernova. He thinks of  _ I would like to forget _ . He thinks of  _ I don’t think I know how to stop _ .

Thomas looks at James as he sleeps on his side, naked among the sea of colour that envelops them. He is beautiful, he always has been; Thomas had often told him so, in those early days. Back then, James had also struggled to speak, to voice his pleasure, his desire. Thomas had found the voice James had hidden in himself for so long and plucked it right out of him. This silence that has been choking James is different, now. Before, James had the words, they were just tucked away, hidden in his heart. Now, it is as if every letter, every sentence that has been his to give, had been exhausted. It is as if they have been lost. 

A cloud shifts and the pale face of the moon shines down on them. In the translucent light, Thomas sees something appear on James’ shoulder. It is a silver crescent. It stands out, bright and shimmering and immutable, against James’ sun-browned freckle-lined skin. It glimmers and exists in its own perfect, terrifying singularity.

_ My name is John Silver. _

It would seem that a one-legged man, in a strand far, far away, has lost everything for love. And yet, it seems that James’ body isn’t quite sure how to stop loving John Silver either. 

The thread dangles. 

Careful not to wake his lover, Thomas stands and dresses. His clothes are the same as the ones that John Silver had seen him in when he got him out of Bedlam LX019 -- grey, unassuming, easy to forget. It will suit his purpose because none of this will matter if he ends up getting  _ himself  _ killed. If he is to do what needs to be done, he needs to become a shadow. A ghost.

Thomas sits up and reaches for a blue flower. A forget-me-not, and isn’t there a certain irony in that. He remembers seeing them in his father’s house as a child, there had been so many of them. The only spot of colour in what was once a dull world. Now, Thomas’ world is full of colours, but he needs to bring himself back to that dullness. He needs to excavate a faceless being from within himself. 

He begins bending the petals. He plucks one out. He twists and ties the leaves. He spreads the pollen over the stalk. In the fragile body of the flower, Thomas leaves James a note. It’s a simple one, for he and James have always been able to understand each other with half a spoken thought. It reads:  _ My truest love. Rest easy and well while I am gone. Do not give in to sorrow and shame. I will always find my way back to you. - T. H.  _

He places the letter on James’ chest and carefully puts his warm palm over it, just to feel the beat of his heart again. James stirs but he doesn’t wake. Thomas closes his eyes and spends a few moments just meditating on his gentle breathing. 

Then, as if spurred on, he stands. The clothes on him have a hood, which he pulls over his eyes. Suddenly, he almost looks transparent: as if he blends into the background, as if he is not there at all. All that remains from him is a shadow in the moonlight. 

With one last look at James, Thomas climbs the thread. 

* * *

_ James _ .

It’s a five-letter word, it’s simple, it’s uncomplicated. Silver finds himself repeating it endlessly, whispering it at night, at every hour, every breath he takes, every time his lungs fill up with air, every time they deflate. He hangs to it like a drowning man to a lifeline. 

When the Commander gives him back his voice, he screams himself hoarse.  _ James, James, James. _ It sounds like a prayer, an ode, a chant. He’s never been a religious man, but there’s something holy about it, something eternal and unchangeable. 

The first time he cries, he is hanging naked from the ceiling and his shoulder dislocates. They laugh at him and there are no questions to be asked. His lips are chipped when he whispers,  _ James, James _ . He thinks of flaming hair and strong hands, but for a second–just one–he doesn’t remember who they belong to, or why. He cries then, like a baby, without shame. The pain is endless and he doesn’t want to forget.

_ My name is John Silver, and I have a long fucking memory _ . But memory fails, and he doesn’t remember, then, why it hurts so much. He remembers a smile, but it wasn’t for him. And he remembers blonde hair, a man running towards a red-headed figure on a beach, their arms stretched out, open, waiting. But Silver’s hair is pitch dark, and no one is waiting for him.

The second time he cries, they cut his tongue and let him choke on his own blood. His mouth is hollow, cavernous and terrifying and his screams are guttural and dark. He remembers a gash on someone’s neck and remembers his lips on the wound, but he doesn’t remember what it tasted like nor whom it belonged to. 

The Commander asks two questions, as she observes his tongue knit itself back together until it regrows. 

“Where are they?” 

Silver looks at her and he clenches his fists so hard his nails leave marks on his palms. He can’t reply, but that’s not the point. It was never the point. He doesn’t know, anyway. He’s left them in Savannah but they will be long gone by now. He wants to say as much, but it wouldn’t make any difference, and he’s so very tired.

“How did Captain Flint convince you to do this?”

That, he knows. He didn’t have to. It was the only way, it was the only path Silver ever picked for himself, and he didn’t regret it. Not yet.

The third time Silver cries is when the Commander tells him something simple. “You think he loved you but there was no love, Long. This I know to be true. You betrayed me for nothing, for a broken promise, for something that was never yours to have.”

It’s not true, he knows it isn’t. He knows because there is a chest buried on an island in a strand far, far away that tells a different story. He knows because there’s a Seeker that found their letters and rubbed itself against words that they’d threaded carefully through time. But the pain is too much and they’re pouring water on his nose and if he had ever wondered how long a man can resist without breathing now he knows, he knows all too well.

He thinks of Muldoon drowning in the belly of a ship and he thinks that that love, at least, tasted sweet. But there will be no one to hold his hand as he dies, nothing to remember him by. Only silence. Only regret.  _ Just the water _ .

They cover his eyes and his nose and his mouth, and he has his voice back but he can’t move, he can barely breathe. He is waiting for something, and when the water comes and he gasps and he trembles and his body convulses he thinks of the sea, he thinks  _ James, gods, where are you _ . He thinks of drowning at the bottom of the ocean, maybe close to Nassau Z20A, he imagines James -- no, Captain Flint, standing on the shore, scanning the horizon.  _ Would you look for me? Would you mourn me, if only you knew? _

They let him breathe and then the water comes back and gods, he has flooded towns, villages, whole cities and civilisations and he’s never wanted to burn as much as he does now. 

“God, James, please, please, James” he says, his voice a whisper, his eyes unseeing. He doesn’t know what he’s waiting for. He just wants it to end, but he can’t beg for forgiveness, he can’t ask for a pardon and he doesn’t know why, he doesn’t, he just hears a voice and it goes like this:  _ this ends when I grant them my forgiveness, not the other way around. _

It’s been a month, a year, a whole lifetime. They learn he hates the water and they learn he can stand the burns. They don’t burn him again: they learn fast, and the Commander doesn’t make the same mistake twice. 

His hair is long again, but it’s dull and some strands are grey. He doesn’t feel the cold anymore and he thinks of the belly of a whale. He’s resting, he thinks of sunlight, of rain, he thinks of anything, anything at all, anything outside of this corner of hell, his own personal nightmare. Long John Silver, forgotten, abandoned. A footnote at the bottom of a story, and the narrator doesn’t have his name.

* * *

As he climbs, Thomas keeps only one name in his mind, and that name is John Silver. 

In Nassau Z20A is where he first finds him, bare-faced and two-legged.  _ God, he looks like a little shit,  _ Thomas thinks with no little amount of affection.  _ James didn’t stand a chance.  _

He watches as the man-boy finds a piece of paper that looks important and vanishes up the thread. Thomas, shrouded in darkness, follows him, with a step as light as smoke.

James’ first letter is a clear threat: a sharp glimmering piece of flint. Silver’s smile as he traces its edges is blinding and then he breaks it in two. He must have thought that would be enough to destroy it. When he leaves, Thomas carefully crushes what’s left of the flint into thin grey dust, then uses it to add silver streaks in his own hair. 

In Port Royal LK092, Silver leaves a needle. Cheeky bastard. Thomas watches James’ broad shoulders shake as he tries to suppress the laughter that rises in him. He is more careful: he melts the needle on a campfire. When he’s gone, Thomas takes the residue and tucks it between the strands of his own shirt. 

In Atlantis XO92, Thomas picks up the chamber of a destroyed flintlock and carefully puts it in his pocket. 

In Strand 19, Thomas finds the crumbs of a silver spiderweb. He puts them in a bottle of alcohol and he swallows them whole.

The next letters are violence and longing, half-spoken truths, stories of death and despair. The smothering, stinking ash of coal, moonstone crushed into dust. Then, a whole jar of fireflies. An apology. Then, a thread from a coat. Forgiveness. 

Thomas rubs the traces of forgiveness on his belly button. 

In the London of their youth, Thomas trails John Silver around the winding streets of Whitehall. He picks up the ashes of the still burning page of Marcus Aurelius’  _ Meditations  _ and collects them under his fingernails. He does not stop to look at James, rakish and smiling, because if he stops, he’ll never go on. He has to do this right. 

Charles Town PA921 is enveloped in hellfire. In the smoke, Thomas can feel, can smell James’ anger. It burns, as hot and bright as the city does. 

Somewhere, in a field far away from the inferno, a man with the unmistakable gait of John Silver leads a group of angry-looking men away from James. He has disguised himself well, but not well enough. Thomas watches as his Commander appears and presses a needle into his neck, watches as he collapses in her cold arms. He can’t do anything. He is a shadow. He is a ghost. 

Bristol X34 leaves behind a single fish scale. Thomas tucks it behind his ear. 

On Island MR00N, Thomas finds just one piece of a silver feather, carefully placed right upon his path. A carrot under a box with a stick. Thomas almost wants to laugh but he doesn’t think he remembers how to. He has been climbing for so long. 

_ Oh James,  _ he thinks as he sidesteps around his lover,  _ you still fight as fiercely as you make love, my dear.  _

When he shoves James into the rock, his heart clenches. But he cannot get distracted. He cannot stop. He picks up the glimmering shard and jumps up the thread before James comes to.

After the altercation, James’ letters become completely lost to him. The remains of a shimmering wire mention the word  _ pouch _ but Thomas cannot think about them, he cannot look too closely. It is not his job to read the letters. He only needs to collect them, to take them into his body as much as he can bear. And then. And then what? And then, well -- he hopes there will be enough left for James to read. For James to understand. For James to  _ know _ . John Silver’s life depends on it.

The one place where he does make a stop is KY9102. It is an indulgence but he allows it to himself. Just to watch for a bit. To hear the whisper of the trees, to see the way the muscles in James’ back undulate as he works. He is so beautiful. He shines with a new light that Thomas does not recognise, as if something beautiful and airy has found its way straight onto his heart. James has always carried love so well.

It has been many days, many steps, many strands, and Thomas can feel the fatigue gnawing at his bones. He can feel the words of a love that could not speak its name in any other way weigh into his skin. 

He is not stupid. He knows that he is dying. 

He knows that, even well-trained, a Seeker can only carry letters for so long before the weight of them becomes unbearable. Seekers train for years, and Thomas has not trained at all, and yet he is taking on words that hold the entire universe in balance. He is bargaining with his own life just because of his faith in doing the right thing. Sometimes, all he can do is stare at the heavy darkness between the strands and wonder whether he could have made a different choice. 

Still, he stops and watches as James buries a chest. A longing opens up in Thomas, wide and howling. That’s James’ words. Something he has been deprived of for-- God, how long has it been? That chest has everything he needs, everything he could possibly want from this endeavour. 

His lover is not stupid either. He locks and buries the chest, and Seekers can never break the solidity of earth, they can only ever touch objects imbued with language. He is so close to the victory, yet he watches it disappear beyond his reckoning. For a moment, Thomas wonders if failure is inevitable.

James burns words into the beeswax of a candle. He drops it down the thread. With one last longing look, Thomas dives down after it.

Strand 9012L is when it all goes wrong.

“I did not think the Commander had sent another Seeker,” the being says and Thomas can’t see its face, of course he can’t. “But there is something odd, something half-finished about you.” 

Along the other Seeker’s face -- where his face would be, anyway -- is a long, jagged scar. Is this someone? Someone he’s known? Someone who-- Thomas’ head vibrates with the effort to figure it out. He steadies himself the best he can.

“I was to be the only one to collect these,” he lies. “By orders of the Commander.”

“New orders,” the other Seeker barks. “These are to be taken in whole.” And truly, there is both a candle stub and a match now, there, on the ground. Just how far had Thomas climbed? When had James written another letter? 

He watches the Seeker take them and they pass each other. 

As soon as he possibly can, he dives down after the Seeker. If these letters, if these caches of words that James has so carefully created reach the Commander, all will be lost. 

His step falters now. He’s weakening, every second. But Thomas Hamilton knows how to survive. It’s perhaps the only thing he does know, he thinks, as his hand clamps around the other Seeker’s throat. When it dies, its image clears, and Thomas looks at the aristocratic face with distaste. It is indeed someone he knew, once. Someone who claimed to have the same goals, the same ideals. Someone, who now wanted to do nothing but destroy and betray. Maybe he will feel something about killing this man. Maybe, one day, he will remember how to.

But now there is no time. Thomas takes the letters and rushes. He is so tempted to read them, so hungry for James’ words, and he carries a whole feast of them in his very pocket. But there will be time. There will be endless words, once this is all over. If he sees it through. If only he can get them to Silver, get them to--

He is too late. 

Thomas stands in the cabin of the ship and watches John Silver cradle James in his arms. James, who is bleeding. James, who is dying and still so beautiful. On Silver’s cheek is a red mark, a note, a love confession with James’ last breath. Thomas cannot stand to watch. He cannot shake the horror of James’ choking noises, so similar to that broken, desperate noise on the beach in Savannah. He cannot stand to wait and witness this strand burn down to ashes, he cannot bear to watch John Silver’s tears as it does. Without looking back, Thomas leaves, and at his heels Silver’s broken, desperate howl follows. 

The weight of everything unspoken between them is slowing Thomas down and poisoning his blood. He can feel it grind inside his joints, as if his collagen has suddenly grown spikes. Climbing gets harder and harder and his heart beats slower and slower. Thomas can feel his sweat mix with blood, can feel every painful rise and fall of his own chest. He’s running out of time. He needs the rest of their story -- all the letters in the chest that James left, everything that Silver still carries within him. He needs it, or it will all be for nothing.

In Troy MN776, the answer comes to him unwarranted. His tired feet trip and the candle and matchstick roll out of his pocket, as if an unknown force within them had been dragging him towards Silver all this time. Silver picks them up and starts reading. 

Thomas smiles and doesn’t wait for him to finish. He climbs down the thread towards KY9102. The lonely island, where James buried his love, ready for Silver to find. 

He will be waiting. 

* * *

Silver is dozing off, leaning against one of the walls, his body in shivers but he doesn’t really care.  _ James. James. James. _

He hears footsteps, the door cracking, someone cupping his head, a pair of hands. He shakes, screams, tries to move away.

“N-no,” he whispers. “No more, James, get me -- get me out, get me out, get me out.”

It’s just someone with some water, they make him drink and they let him go. It’s all there is.  _ It’s done, it’s done, it’s done. _

He’s alone again, he curls up in a corner, naked, barefoot. He’s crying, but his fingers catch on something -- something real, a truth? 

There’s a handkerchief on the floor. It’s -- it’s real, and blue. It’s the deepest, warmest shade of blue Silver has ever seen. He picks it up, his hands shaking, his nails black.

There’s a stitching, crimson red.  _ Silver lining, my red thread. _

In the stitching there’s a letter. 

Silver breathes again.

* * *

**_From: T. Hamilton_ **

**_To:_ ** **_~~Long John Silver~~ _ ** **_~~,~~ Bedlam LX019_ **

I have no address for you in this letter and I do not feel as if I can call you by your name just yet. That is a privilege I need to earn and I am comfortable in that knowledge. However, I have read all the names he has given you. Silvertongue. Silver lining. Shimmering sea. Moon. Beloved. He has called you so many things, so many of his words belong to you and you alone. You thought that you could erase them, that you could erase yourself from this story, from  _ his  _ story without consequences. I’m afraid to tell you that you were wrong.

You have saved James’ life and you have returned him to me but in the process you have doomed yourself. I know this sacrifice. I see it now. I saw it on Troy, countless times, and I carried it all deep within me. Just the way you saw it. Just the way you carried it.

Did you know, man of many names, that the fighting in Troy stopped after that day? After you burned everything to the ground with the force of your rage? There was no need for wooden horses or trickery. You were so bright and blazing in your love and grief that you levelled everything to the ground. You looked so much like him, in that moment. 

In the face of you, the thread did the only thing it could do: it capitulated. It had served its purpose. Once you left, Troy MN776 disintegrated to leave behind a hollow, empty nothingness.

Do you know what lives in the space between the strands? 

I have seen it now. As I followed both of you, I stepped in those empty spaces so you would not see me. It is dark; so dark that you cannot even see your own hands. Can you imagine a dark like this? For a time, I did not think I would ever leave it. 

But I digress. I am sorry it took me this long. You must know, I have only read of Seekers before: I was the one who tried to get the programme banned, way back when I still thought I could affect how this pointless war is being fought. I am sure a trained one would have been much less clumsy, much quicker, much stronger. The result, however, remains the same. You would be surprised, the echo that your words have left upon the strands. In every thread I could feel their vibration right under my feet.

It is no wonder that James has been unable to excavate his voice, it is no wonder that his eyes always wander, always search, even if he did not know what he was searching for. You and him, is what this has all been leading to. Within yourselves, the two of you hold the story of the world. 

I know it is difficult and I know they are hurting you. They tried to hurt me in much the same way when I was there. I am asking you to bear it a little while longer. When the full moon comes, I will have finished telling James your story, all of it, I have knitted it deep into my skin. I only collected fragments but they are important ones and I can fill in the gaps. I’ve watched you, both of you. I am good at telling stories -- even ones that are difficult to tell. You should know, you need to know, that yours is nothing to be ashamed of. That your love of him, the sacrifices you have made, the hardships you have endured, they have all built you into who you are today. They have built him, too.

So. Once I am finished with my story, with your story, James will come for you. I apologise I will not join him -- I need to take significant time to recover from my journey -- but he will take care of you. It is what he was made to do. 

I ask you to follow him with no doubt and no fear. I ask you to take his hand and let him lead you to a place of safety. I ask you to listen to what he has to say to you. 

This, John Silver, is how we are going to win. 

Until we meet again.

T. H. 

* * *

The red thread weaves and turns and twists, like blood, like a promise, like a way home. 

John Silver has been many things in his life: a soldier, a poet, a thief, a lover, a fighter, a flight risk, a murderer, a healer. A religious man is not one of these things. And yet, in that cell, that night, his ribs hurting and his heart beating like mad, racing like a horse, impossibly fast, there is something in the way he bites his tongue and eats up those words that tastes like a prayer, that tastes like mercy. Luminous and bright.

He reads and rereads and reads again. His eyes and hands are tired and the guards will be coming soon and he can’t risk it, he can’t risk Thomas and James’ lives now that he knows, now that he can finally breathe again and his lungs hurt and his joints are cracking, sore and painful but  _ gods, he feels so alive. _

He holds the handkerchief in his hands, presses his nose to it, his forehead, his lips. He smells it and he wets it with his tongue, traces the red stitching with his crooked fingers, breathes it in. He wants to swallow it, devour Thomas’ words, eat up every single letter, imprint them on his soul, on every inch of his battered skin. He thinks,  _ how do I deserve this. _ He thinks,  _ Thomas doesn’t even know me.  _ Or does he? Just how much has Thomas learned, now that he has taken every word deep into his skin, etched it where it will live forever? 

But then, something in James knows him still. Something in James still does and it was enough for Thomas to notice, and seek him out, and collect bits of his soul, up and down the thread, and bring them back home.  _ And isn’t it ironic, after all? He asked me about my home once, and I couldn’t answer. But now, after this? I have never belonged anywhere else, and he knew it, even then. _

He holds the fabric in his hands for a second, for a minute, for a lifetime, and then he knows he needs to let go. He tears it to pieces, wants to blow it up, he eats every single fragment of it and hides them underneath his tongue, behind his front teeth, under his eyelids, he splits every single one of his hair and hides them in every segment of space he can see. And then he waits.

And he waits.

And he waits.

And the wait tastes sweet. Like mangoes on an island, like pomegranate and tea leaves and a treasure buried on a beach that contained no money, no pearls, no gems. 

And as he waits, he dreams, and he remembers, and they hurt him in a thousand other ways as he does and it doesn’t matter, his body floating like a cloud, a balloon filled up with air so hot the sole thought of it can burn down whole cities and make empires fall. The Commander, her Navy, her soldiers? They never stood a chance. And John Silver is a liar, always has been, but this is his truth. The truest he could ever conceive. 

The night James arrives the moon is full and silvery. A lifetime later Silver will think that it was only appropriate. A full circle, completion, the end and the beginning of it all. And that night? Silver and him? Under moonlight, in that cell, surrounded by celestial bodies, they couldn’t have been more attached to the earth beneath their feet.

The night James arrives, Silver is bone-tired and sore and looks like a skeleton, like half a ghost. His skin is pulled tight and his cheekbones show. But he feels human, and true. A real, aching thing, waiting on the edge of a precipice, at the end of the world. 

Silver sees him as he climbs down the thread, and only his eyes show. He’s wearing a turban and Silver mourns the sight of his hair for a second, then weeps. He wants to stand up but his knees are icy cold and impossible to move, so his throat makes a sound -- a terrifying, half-muted thing. He leans forward, his forearms hitting the floor, and he crawls like a desperate animal fighting for its life, running from a lifetime of captivity and destruction and death.

There is light in front of him, and it’s right there, and Silver can’t reach it, Silver can’t reach it, he can’t, he moves and he shifts but his chains hold him back and he wants to get closer but there’s an ocean between him and the end of darkness and pain and  _ oh god, he’s not here, he’s not, help, help, please, help. _

He says it, he says it, “Please,” his voice hoarse and weak and he’s looking at the door, wary of a guard that might come in, but he is looking at James, at his hands, fast and strong as he climbs down and then lets go, and fuck, he’s tried for so long but looking at two different points in space at the same time has never been something he could master on his own.  _ I know, but I’ll teach you _ .

And fuck, can he just stop imagining James’ voice when he’s right there, solid and real, and he’s coming towards him, the turban falling to the ground as he walks, silent and soft and so beautiful Silver might die if he wasn’t already half dead. And there he is, a step and a step and another one, and why isn’t he speaking, why is he only looking, why is he -- why is he.

An arm, outstretched. At the end of it, a hand. And the hand is open, and big, and kind. And Silver’s hair isn’t blonde and he isn’t anyone’s lost love, is he? But he can’t stop looking, the hand closer and closer and  _ fuck, he is so warm I can feel it, I can, I- _ -

And then.

And then.

[art by [@SAMH0UND](https://twitter.com/SAMH0UND) (twitter)]

There are fingers on his cheeks, warm and wet, James is cupping his face and he is sobbing and all of a sudden there is no more air, or space, there’s nothing beyond them. James’ hands keep moving, his fingertips brushing up against the tip of his nose, his bruises, his bottom lip, the tip of his ears, the segment of space between his collarbones and his neck. He kisses Silver’s forehead with unbearable softness, then, and breathes him in. 

“J-James,” Silver says, broken and undone. And then he understands. James is re-learning him, taking him in, Silver’s flesh like clay that James is moulding and shaping, bringing him back to life. “James, James,” Silver’s hands fly to his wrists and squeeze, holding tight. 

For a moment, he is suddenly terribly, achingly aware of his own nakedness, and however much he had once wished to let James have him, the whole of him, he cannot help but curl into himself reflexively now, trying to make himself smaller, tuck himself away. He feels like the child he had once been, hiding and fighting in the wrongness of his own body. James had known, then, but this James, here and now? Silver doesn’t know if he has any more words left in him to explain, he doesn’t know that he can find it in his heart to stand naked, moonlight pale, so that James might look at him again and so that something in him might recognise him still. 

“You don’t know me, you don’t. You-- James, you forgot me, and I--”

He’s breathless, speechless, cannot even think. There’s something broken in him, something terrible, and he is undone. There are stories, tales of pirates and soldiers and good men, and some of them are easy to tell. But John Silver’s story is a hard one to know. And Silver doesn’t know he’s that good a storyteller to open himself up, cut open his chest and take out his feeble, beating heart, hold it into his palm and then up. A precious, meaningless offering.  _ James, I don’t know if I can give this to you. I don’t know if you should take it. _

He is tired, he thinks, and he wants to be loved. But he is scared to try. He is tired, but he cannot stop holding on. Everyone knows how the story goes: if Long John Silver is one thing, he is a selfish man. He will take the small comfort of the pulse steadily thrumming on the inside of James’ wrist, he will close his eyes, and he will wait just so... 

And then James half-laughs and half-sobs. It is a quiet, breathless thing that sounds so wrong in the wretched, cold space of the cell. His eyes blaze as he brings their foreheads together and Silver can feel his breath on his cheek, can see his delicate eyelashes, the freckles just below his eye.  _ Gods above,  _ Silver thinks, desperate.  _ He still burns so, so bright. _

“John Silver, I would know you in life and in death, in light and in darkness, in the past, present, or future. There’s a truth for you.” His lips press against Silver’s forehead and Silver’s heart nearly gives out from the pleasure of it, from the sheer brightness of it. “I would know you from the shadow your body throws on mine, from the way your foot hits the ground, from a single strand of hair. You are everything.”

And there’s clarity then. Something in Silver’s chest moves, then melts, something that had been lodged in the space between his ribs and his lungs. Just there. In the in-betweens. In all the things unsaid. “James, your voice-- I thought I’d never- I…” Silver’s hand goes to James’ neck, pressing and looking for a wound that isn’t there, for a scar that he cannot see. “I saw you, and -- the blood, gods, so much blood, and you couldn’t even say-- your voice --”

Silver is tearing up, not even aware of it, everything in him focused entirely on the man sitting on his knees in front of him, in the space between his own thighs. James smiles at that, raw at the edges, crooked and real. 

“I was saving it up, Silver, for all the words I wanted to say to you.” He kisses Silver’s forehead again and then his nose, his cheek, the corner of his mouth. There is a frantic, panicked energy to his affection. “My light in the darkness, my moon, my love. I am here for you now. No one is going to hurt you ever again.” 

And then there’s silence again, but of a much different kind. There will be time for words, there will be time for their bodies to learn how to move together, as a whole. For their hands to learn the weight of the other’s, for their hearts to combine. And it will be the end of the shadows, of darkness, of the war and every fight. So they climb the thread, they climb and they climb. 

Achilles never got to hold Patroclus again, but what if he had? 

Silver is just a man. But, he thinks, that reunion -- in Hades, in a battlefield, in a palace in Greece, on an island in the middle of the ocean, unknown to all? -- It would have looked much like this one. Two souls, two men, their hearts on their lips and their breaths turned one. It would have looked much like this one, and it would have been true. 

_ There are too many tragedies in this world, _ Silver thinks. But he knows, and James does too, that sometimes all it takes is something small -- a single act of thievery, something stolen, something lost, and someone brave enough to weave a story out of it, and the story goes like this: there was a ship, and a pirate captain, and half a man. There was a battle and a mutiny and a tempest and a storm. There was a schedule, crystal clear, yet smeared with ink. 

And something in the middle of the ocean, reflected in the sky all above: a lonely island, and on the island a chest. 

In the chest a silver lining, and a single red thread. 

  
  


**_End of Part 2._ **

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